A commercial that will be introduced on Monday opens with a male voice-over explaining that the ancient Mayans made offerings to their gods of beans, corn and potatoes, all of which he calls boring.
“No wonder,” he says, “the gods decided to end the world.”
In the commercial an actor depicting a Jell-O executive in a khaki safari outfit is led through the jungle by guides. Some guides carry a large wooden crate, an offering, promises the voice-over, “that would finally appease the gods.”
When they reach a Mayan temple, they pry the lid off the crate to reveal that it is filled with cups of chocolate pudding.
“Jell-O pudding — the funnest sacrifice ever,” says the voice-over as the men stack the pudding into the form of a pyramid. “Fingers crossed, we’ll see you on the 22nd.”
The commercial closes with the slogan Jell-O is introducing with the campaign: “Fun things up.”
The commercial, by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, of Boulder, Colo., part of MDC Partners, will run widely on television and online through Dec. 21.
On Dec. 22, Jell-O will introduce a second commercial that concludes the premise, and which will run only through Dec. 23. The brand declined to reveal the content of the second spot publicly for the sake of suspense.
Jell-O, which would not disclose the cost of the campaign, spent $37.4 million on advertising in 2011, down from $69.5 million in 2010, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.
Jell-O, which began as a gelatin-only brand, has been marketed increasingly as a treat for children. Memorable campaigns with Bill Cosby as spokesman introduced in the 1970s and spanning more than 25 years, for example, featured the comedian interacting with young children.
The strategy historically has been to induce “mom to buy the product for her kids, but then she and dad ate it as well,” said Dan O’Leary, senior director for marketing for Jell-O, a Kraft Foods brand.
That shifted around 2002, when, during the Atkins diet craze, Jell-O pudding, especially the sugar-free varieties, was marketed primarily to adults as a low-carb, high-protein treat. Consumption patterns changed, with “mom buying it for herself, but the kids not eating it as much,” Mr. O’Leary said.
Now, instead of pinpointing either children or adults, Jell-O is pitching the products as “desserts the whole family loves,” Mr. O’Leary said.
These days Jell-O, particularly the gelatin variety, has a “bad rap,” writes Victoria Belanger in “Hello, Jell-O,” a recipe book published in February that takes an unexpected gourmet approach, with recipes for molds like eggnog rum, sparkling Champagne and strawberries and watermelon basil agar.
“What people mostly think of when they think of Jell-O is cafeterias and hospital food,” Ms. Belanger, who publishes a blog, The Jello Mold Mistress of Brooklyn, said in an interview. Or, she added, “they think of Jell-O shots,” referring to the potent concoctions popular in college bars.
“It’s not thought of as being very classy, and it’s not that I think it’s super classy, but I’ve at least tried to elevate it,” said Ms. Belanger of gelatin desserts. “I still haven’t broken the cupcake barrier, but that’s a high bar to set.”
Pearle B. Wait, a carpenter in Le Roy, N.Y., created Jell-O in 1897, and it wasn’t long before the brand became as synonymous with gelatin desserts as Kleenex is with facial tissues and Q-Tips with cotton swabs.
Today, Kraft, which also owns the Knox unflavored gelatin brand, commands a 79.5 percent share of the market for gelatin dessert mixes, an 82.3 percent share for pudding, mousse and pie filling mixes, and a 56.2 percent share for refrigerated pudding, mousse, gelatin and parfaits, according to data for the 52 weeks ending Nov. 4 from SymphonyIRI Group, a market research firm.
According to Jell-O, sales of pudding products account for about 60 percent of revenue and gelatin products for 40 percent; ready-to-eat products in the dairy case account for about 55 percent of revenue, shelf-stable mixes for 45 percent.
To help update the brand, in September Kraft introduced Jell-O with Mix-Ins, which have a second container of dry ingredients fitted atop pudding cups. Intended to appeal to multigenerational palates, the varieties have associations to other desserts, including German chocolate cake, banana caramel pie and strawberry shortcake.
Newer recipes, meanwhile, try to increase what food marketers call usage occasions by including the powder mixes in dishes whose final form is neither pudding nor gelatin.
Recipes highlighted on the Jell-O Facebook page recently, for example, include a snack mix made with popcorn, pretzel twists, nuts and a glaze made with the brand’s black cherry gelatin. Another recipe for a blended coffee drink combines instant coffee, milk and vanilla pudding.
“We feel like the way to make both gelatin and pudding newsworthy and contemporary is by treating them more like ingredients,” said Mr. O’Leary, the brand manager.
As for the new advertising, Tony Calcao, an executive creative director at Crispin Porter & Bogusky, said the whimsical approach toward the Mayan calendar was meant to demonstrate the new tagline, “Fun things up.”
Jell-O carefully eschewed typical advertising assertions about the product being toothsome and wholesome, which Mr. Calcao said he appreciated.
“They could have asked to force in some health benefit or taste message about the pudding being made with real milk or containing no high fructose corn syrup, but they didn’t,” he said. “There’s no bite-and-smile in the work, and that’s good.”
