General Mills created a cartoon character. The second step was to create a cartoon show, which aired the character's cartoons. The last step was for the company to create a cereal that ties in with the cartoon character. Truly diabolical. Those little kids didn't know what HIT them.

Twinkles the Flying Elephant, was created in 1960. The cartoons aired on, King Leonardo and His Short Subjects, which was seen on NBC. The program had different segments, each segment starred a different cartoon character. The entire show revolved around King Leonardo. General Mills was the sponsor of the show and they "created" a cereal, which featured Twinkles the flying elephant. The cereal was basically the same as several other brands, in the GM line of products. The most important part of the product is the box. The box will get the consumer to try it the first time. If the product is good, they will be back, and buy more boxes.

Another little "hook" was the novel idea of having a multi-paged storybook, printed on the back of the box.

I have uploaded two different Twinkles cereal boxes, produced during its 3 year run.







General Mills produced several print advertisements. Two of the ads are from 1961 comic books, ads that were directly targeting the children. The kids couldn't resist the elephant who could fly, by using his tail as a propeller. They had to read the continuing stories on the back of the cereal box. HOOK, LINE AND SINKER, General Mills caught the kids.







This ad was aimed at the adults, the people who wanted to please the actual consumers. And, of course, the consumer would be their children. Hit the children with a barrage of ads and then hit the parents. Just like in war, hit the "enemy" from multiple fronts.




Below is a TV commercial for General Mills Twinkles. You can see him twisting his propeller tail, and all of a sudden, he FLYS. 










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