Planters Peanuts and the Taste for Secrecy
Don't forget to go nuts in the comments section
or shall we go there and call it, just for today, the peanut gallery . Sorry. It's late.
Abstract
Food companies appeal to class distinctions to market products. One way of creating a sense of exclusivity, and justifying a higher price-point, is through the public display of intellectual property. In this talk, I illustrate how Planters Peanuts directed attention to the visual quality of its goods. Planters held a trade secret on processing peanuts, and the company sought to differentiate its peanuts from other retail offerings by mentioning this special process on print media advertisements and packaging labels.
A shift from gustation to presentation in the first half of the 20th century went hand-in-hand with a marketing strategy that circulated displays of who was intended to eat the peanuts, and who was to grow them. Peanuts’ history in America was as “Negro food” or rowdy circus fare — something Planters peanuts were not. Through print media, the Mr. Peanut logo helped position Planters peanut products as befitting an uppity luncheon, while also insisting that it was within the household budget, unlike costly foreign alternatives. The name-brand marketing of Virginia peanuts could be re-contextualized to suggest new social feelings of scarcity. These feelings became real during a shortage of jumbo peanuts on the home-front during the Second World War. The science of food nutrition helped recommend the wholesome snack for soldiers overseas (as well as the post-war health movement to follow), while Mr. Peanut urged loyalty and smaller portions. The Planters company helped educate the buying public into registering that their peanuts, roasted and salted in secrecy, were a class apart.
No clue. The advertising material seems to change by the 1970s, but I haven't gotten that far in the timeline of my study, much less conducted interviews.
Enjoyed watching this Tad. 'Fascinating how the ads of older times had very long texts. And people read them! How do you think this brand is perceived now by African-Americans? Is their memory of the food-based discrimination?
There may be something to that suggestion, Leo. A few more instances would surely bolster the interpretation. And the thing about trade secrets is that because you aren't required to disclose them, only take care to guard them, and in this case, not be misleading in your ingredient statements, the actual content of the secrecy could be nothing that special.
I really enjoyed the talk, Tad. I see some similarities between the marketing of Planters and KFC. Planters has a secret process and KFC has the secret 11 herbs and spices. Both have genteel mascots in Mr. Peanut and Colonel Harland Sanders. I wonder if these are common tropes in the marketing/portrayal of black foods to appeal to a wider market including higher class consumers?
A really fascinating presentation, and echoed in the Nobby's campaigns (class/gentrification/sophistication) as well I think. The racial divide is still very apparent in peanuts too https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/full/10.1094/PDIS-02-18-0266-FE. Local markets and field 'gleaning' for primary producers and communities = consumption of aflatoxin contaminated crops, where high-end microbial control/international market sales are only accessible to those with the finance to implement those technologies.
Terrific talk Tad, appealing very much to my interest in race and food. I noticed on one of the later images that they peanuts were characterised as 'blanched' and I wonder if this too was part of whiteying the peanut?