Special K Ads Come In Chunky Style

Go figure. Baby boomers just can’t relate to those Special K commercials in which models squeeze their drop-dead perfect bodies into clingy dresses and tight jeans and preen in front of the mirror.

So Kellogg Co. is dropping the ad campaign and starting a new one that suggests healthy, even chunky, can be beautiful.

Madison Avenue is reaching out to baby boomers getting that middle-aged spread.

“For the baby boomer generation, being the way they were at age 18 is an impossible dream, so they might as well focus on fitness and health,” said Adam Drewnowski, director of the Human Nutrition Program at the University of Michigan. “Many campaigns have shifted from thin and beautiful to active and healthy.”

Kellogg, the nation’s leading cereal maker, launched the new TV campaign for Special K this week. The fat-free toasted rice cereal is the grandmother of diet foods, having made its debut in 1955.

In place of thin women tugging at their clothes, one commercial has men at a bar. It pokes fun at women’s complaints about their bodies.

“I have my mother’s thighs. I have to accept that,” one man says.

“Do these make my butt look big?” another asks.

The message: “Men don’t obsess about these things. Why do we?” Kellogg said in a statement.

The change is a welcome one to Pam Schuler, who sipped coffee and chatted with friends at a bookstore in this wealthy Detroit suburb recently.

Schuler, 25, said one Special K commercial in particular really bugged her. “When she was in that little dress saying, ‘I’m hot, I’m great,’ it really bothered me,” she said. “Because I could never be like that.”

That’s a big reason Kellogg switched its strategy, said Kenna Bridges, product publicity manager for Battle Creek-based Kellogg. In letters and in focus groups, women indicated they were alienated by the ads.

“They told us they really couldn’t relate to advertising techniques that used unrealistic body images,” she said.

Kellogg’s ad agency, Leo Burnett Co., got to work on the “Reshape Your Attitude” campaign. It was previewed during the Super Bowl. Magazine ads will follow this spring.

Drewnowski said the new Special K campaign is part of a trend of recognizing the aging of the nation’s largest population group.