https://www.youtube.com/embed/7Ye7MAGoaeo
[Music] jellow has starred in some of the 1950s most infamous recipes there was being served at tea parties and cart parties its beloved in what's known as the cello belt and continues to be slurp down by college students across the country but despite its brand recognition sales have been slipping for decades dropping more than 371 million dollars between 2009 and 2018 so what happened before two prepackaged boxes and colorful jiggling cups we've come to recognize as jell-o gelatin was served in the Middle Ages gelatin is made of collagen and early recipes involved melting and filtering pigs his ears and feet it eventually became a status symbol because you needed to have access to a lot of meat have enough bones to boil you also needed a large staff to do it and some were cool to sort a gelatin so we could set properly the jiggling dish was served to European royalty and it eventually made its way across the Atlantic to the United States soon people were looking for an easier and faster way to make gelatin but early attempts just didn't taste that great however one instant gelatin product would quickly become a staple in American households [Music] invented in the tiny town of Laroy New York by struggling cough syrup' maker pearl Wade and his wife Mae jell-o combined gelatin with sugary fruit syrups which made it sweeter than other instant gelatin products but the small-town couple didn't know how to market jell-o so in 1899 they sold the patent for $450 the equivalent of almost $14,000 today to orator Frank Woodward of the Genesee Pure Food Company just three years later jello sales rose to $250,000 or 7.4 million dollars today jello founded success in a series of highly strategic and successful advertising campaigns it printed its own recipes showing and teaching consumers all the different ways they could serve jello in a meal which generated demand for the product the company commissioned cookbooks and advertisements from American artist Norman Rockwell who created colorful drawings of jell-o and family-friendly settings this helped to establish the company's wholesome reputation in 1923 the Genesee pure food company changed its name to the jello company two years later the jello company became part of a larger food Empire which would eventually become General Foods Corporation when the Great Depression hit recipe books promoted jello as an affordable food option highlighting its ability to preserve foods and transform just a few ingredients into a satisfying meal and during World War two jell-o salads became a creative way to put meals together with rationed goods convenience also began to play a bigger roles and the meals people prepared in rubber team when you had many more women mobilized in the workforce and people were looking for something easy it was probably much easier to just make some jello and stick it in the fridge for the next day than to try and bake a cake or make a pie when when fat was rationed and in the post-war era elaborate jell-o salads became a popular choice for home event like dinner parties these were sort of public events in a private space so it was important that you impressed your guests the qualities that wants me jello a staple in American homes started to backfire while jell-o's low price point made it accessible during hard times like the Great Depression its cheapness also degraded gelatinous once glamorous reputation not to mention jealous association with wartime rations made it less than appealing to consumers who no longer had to stretch out ingredients so by the 50's gelatin was seen as something too sick leftovers in or surf to kids and by the 70s jello sales began to decline in response to its slipping sales jello hired comedian and actor Bill Cosby as a spokesperson in 1974 the partnership is one of the longest celebrity endorsements and American advertising history lasting 29 years at the time Cosby's endorsement helped boost sales but jello took a hit as a ramped up production of its prepackaged single-serve cups it was seen as a snack food for children something served in a school cafeteria or in a hospital not a filling meal for a family tobacco conglomerate philip morris bought General Foods in 1985 and in 1989 merged it with Kraft incorporated creating Kraft General Foods when the low-fat diet trend emerged in the 80s and 90s Kraft tried to market jell-o as a diet food with fat-free flavors to keep up so in the 80s there are all of these products where manufacturers were trying to take away too fat and then add a bunch of preservatives and other ingredients and sugars to make the food still palatable without fat but for jello doing this wasn't enough to turn things around instead it now had the added reputation of being a diet food which only increased in the early 2000s as jell-o pivoted to promoting its sugar-free products to take advantage of the Atkins diet craze when Dad didn't help bounce sales back jello attempted to play up its family-friendly reputation and all dough consumers had embraced jello during the Great Depression as a way to cut car the Great Recession didn't seem to have the same effect from 2009 to 2014 jellow sales declined by double digits falling from 932 point 5 million dollars to 692 million so jello is basically the opposite of what consumers are looking for right now it looks artificial its ingredients are unrecognizable it has a bunch of added sugar and even though it's fat-free we all know now that that is not necessarily healthier so is this the end if jello wanted to make a comeback I think it's pretty impossible if their aim is to appeal to those looking for more natural foods it would have to basically turn into something other than jello but despite its falling sales numbers jello remains popular in places like Salt Lake City and the surrounding area otherwise known as the jello Belt the area has a large Mormon population and jell-o's wholesome family branding aligns of Mormon values jell-o even became the official snack food of Utah in 2001 and the trading pin for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics was a bowl of green jello and Kraft Foods still believes in the brand craft cent business insider this statement saying jello is an iconic brand with very high brand recognition we're always looking to keep the brand relevant the company also encourages people to get creative with jell-o recipes on social media which feels like a return to jell-o's origins when the company would print recipes to teach confused housewives what to do if this strange new product it's also trying to connect the few generations by selling edible jello slime for kids so while jello may no longer be the star of as many meals as it used to be it's still alive and jiggling
