Lucky Charms
Lucky Charms is a popular brand of breakfast cereal produced by the General Mills cereal company of Golden Valley, Minnesota. The cereal consists of two main components: small, toasted bits of oats and multi-colored marshmallow bits in various "magical" shapes. Contrary to popular opinion, they are not currently sold in Ireland.
The cereal was invented in 1962 by a team headed up by the manufacturing vice-president of General Mills, John Holahan. The Research Lab was challenged by the Sales vice president to quickly introduce a new children's cereal within a six month time frame. Normal new cereal introductions took two to three years from product conception to finished product introduction. Rolling out a new cereal product in less than a year was unheard of. The only conceivable way to meet the deadline was to use the available manufacturing capacity from either of General Mills' two big winners - Wheaties or Cheerios, and do something unique to them.
Holohan and his team accepted the challenge from Sales. He sent two food hygienists to the grocery store to buy all the candies and cookies that might taste good mixed with Wheaties or Cheerios. The team sat around a table in the Betty Crocker kitchen, sampling dozens of mixtures of candy and cookie bits with milk. The day became known as "The Day We Invented Lucky Charms." Holohan was clearly the driver, but it was a true team effort.
At the end of the session the two clear favorites were Wheaties with bits of Oreos, and Cheerios with bits of Kraft circus peanuts. Oreos would have represented many manufacturing problems. That left circus peanuts. Holohan called Kraft who said they could quickly supply little marshmallow bits in a variety of shapes. They quickly provided white bits shaped like tiny marshmallows for the original testing stages.
Within weeks, the team was conducting focus group interviews with mothers, watching closely for concerns that their kids would pick out the marshmallow bits and leave the Cheerios behind. The mothers loved the new cereal idea, responding to concerns about marshmallows with: "If it keeps the kids quiet and happy at breakfast, bring it on."
After three unanimous focus group results, the team skipped the normal test market stages and handed the product off to Sales and Advertising, who decided on the moons, stars, hearts, and clovers, plus the Leprechaun mascot, and rushed the new product to market where it immediately exceeded sales forecasts. The team missed the six month window by a few weeks, but it still represented the fastest new cereal introduction ever accomplished by the company.
Lucky Charms was the first cereal to include marshmallows, and until his death in a Minnesota car accident on August 28, 2000, Holahan often visited schools and other speaking venues touting his creation and selling of Lucky Charms as "a lesson in creativity in marketing".
There have been two off-shoot cereals: Chocolate Lucky Charms and Berry Lucky Charms.
Marshmallows
The main selling point for Lucky Charms has always been the marshmallows (or "marbits" as General Mills calls them). The first boxes of Lucky Charms cereal contained marshmallows in the shapes of pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers. The lineup has changed occasionally over the years, beginning with the introduction of blue diamonds in 1975. Purple horseshoes joined the roster in 1984, followed by red balloons in 1989, rainbows in 1992, pots of gold in 1994, leprechaun hats in 1996, and shooting stars in 1998.
Generally as General Mills introduces new shapes, older marshmallows are phased out. The first marbits to be phased out were the yellow moons and blue diamonds, as General Mills introduced their "Pot of Gold" marshmallow. Since they already had a yellow marbit, they changed the yellow moons to blue moons and eliminated the blue diamonds. Sometimes the marbit phase outs are done quietly, other times the changes form the basis for various commercials and other promotional materials. The current assortment thus consists of purple horseshoes; red balloons; blue moons; orange and white shooting stars; yellow and orange pots of gold; pink, yellow, and blue rainbows; two-tone green leprechaun hats; pink hearts (the only shape to survive since the beginning); with the most recent addition being the return of the clovers in 2004. There have also been slight cosmetic changes in the marbits, as when the orange star changed from six points to five in 1995 and when all of the colors were brightened that same year. Other marshmallows have appeared as short-term promotions, such as a whale shape in 1986, shapes based on the Olympic Games in 1996, and marshmallows shaped like various world landmarks in 1999. The marshmallows also grew in size in 2004.
Recent changes to the marshmallows include: the star shape took more of a "shooting star" design, the orange 5 pointed star being added together with a white "trail" (though making the 5th point in the star almost invisible.) More recently, in late 2005 another different kind of marshmallow was added, the "Hidden Key". It is a solid yellow marshmallow that resembles the shape of an older designed door (similar to the shape of a tombstone; flat at the bottom, flat sides with a round top). When liquid is added to the cereal, the sugar inside the marshmallow dissolves and the shape of an older key "appears" as if "by magic". The new tagline for this is "Unlock the door with milk!" This "new" marshmallow type has been used in other kinds of hot and cold cereals, but with mixed success. (from characters "hidden" inside a bigger marshmallow to letters appearing) Also to note, this new "Hidden Key" marshmallow only appears in the "regular" Lucky Charms; NOT in the Chocolate or Berry Versions. In early June, 2006, General Mills introduced a new Lucky Charms marshmallow, Magic Mirror marshmallows.
The Lucky Charms theme song is a product jingle that describes the contents of the box:
- Hearts, stars and horseshoes!
- Clovers and blue moons!
- Pots of gold and rainbows!
- And me red balloons!
The first three lines are generally said by the various children in the commercial, with the last line being said by Lucky the Leprechaun himself (see below).
Lucky the Leprechaun
From the beginning, the mascot for the Lucky Charms has been a leprechaun who can change plain white marshmallows into mystical shapes. When he was introduced in 1964, this character was known as "L.C. Leprechaun", but his name was eventually changed to Lucky. In addition to appearing on the Lucky Charms cereal box, Lucky also stars in each animated Lucky Charms commercial. In these advertisements (long a staple of American children's television), Lucky is usually chased by several children who want his cereal, a fact which prompts him to utter his famous catch phrase (in a highly exaggerated Irish accent), "They're always after me Lucky Charms!" The commercials usually end with Lucky singing the cereal's slogan: "Frosted Lucky Charms, they're magically delicious!" (This has since been changed, with "frosted Lucky Charms" being replaced with "that's me Lucky Charms", and there was a time when the slogan was "marshmallowy delicious"). Lucky's voice was performed by voice actor Arthur Anderson from 1969 to 1992.
For a brief period of time, Lucky the Leprechaun was replaced as the cereal's mascot by a bumbling, inept wizard; but Lucky was returned when sales of the cereal declined as a result.
Lucky has been the star of a series of online webisodes called, "The Quest." Lucky must retrieve the eight Magic Emeralds that were stolen from his land. The webisodes can be seen at Lucky Charms.com.
Controversy
Lucky Charms were targeted by the Rutgers Centurion, a conservative magazine at Rutgers University, due to their offensive portrayal of Irish Americans. Campus Conservatives attempted to ban the cereal as a satirical response to campus political correctness and even put their videotaped encounter with the campus Dining Hall staff online.
Taglines
- Marshmallowy Delicious!
- They're Magically Delicious!
- They're Always After Me Lucky Charms!