Vernon Grant’s biggest claim to fame was the creation of the Snap!®, Crackle! ®, and Pop! ® characters for Kellogg’s® Rice Krispies® cereal. Perhaps no other advertising idea has been as well received or has endured through so many generations.
In 1933 he approached the Kellogg’s® ad agency with a clever idea for selling Rice Krispies® cereal. Grant’s idea was to appeal to children who could greatly influence their parents’ buying habits. After receiving inspiration from the Singing Lady’s Rice Krispies radio jingle which had a snap, crackle and pop noise in the background, he drew three gnomes, naming them “Mr. Snap,” “Mr. Crackle, and “Mr. Pop.” Kellogg’s ad agency, N.W. Ayer, put Grant on an immediate retainer of $5000. The Kellogg Company used Grant’s talents through 1941 and paid him close to a quarter of a million dollars. Although modified from Grant’s original images, Snap!® Crackle! ® and Pop! ® are still used today and are among the most famous images in American advertising.
The Kellogg Company used Grant’s illustrations to promote and advertise a multitude of products from cereal boxes and nursery rhymes booklets to prints and premium mail-in offers.
Vernon Grant’s influence on Kellogg’s advertising campaigns extended beyond the creation of the famous cereal gnomes. Soon after Grant began working for Kellogg’s, a clever marketing technique was developed to include nursery rhyme stories on the backs of Rice Krispies® cereal boxes. He was assigned to do nine stories every six weeks and in the nine years he worked for Kellogg’s he turned out hundreds of illustrations for children’s tales. The stories and their illustrations grew so popular that Kellogg Company began including box-top coupons that families could mail in to receive elaborate full-color story and song booklets, large prints, decals, children’s notepads, ink blotters and much more---all illustrated by Vernon Grant. Such merchandising efforts firmly established Rice Krispies® as the premier children’s cereal and helped “Kellogg’s Singing Lady” radio program to become America’s most popular children’s show for an entire generation.
In 1933 he approached the Kellogg’s® ad agency with a clever idea for selling Rice Krispies® cereal. Grant’s idea was to appeal to children who could greatly influence their parents’ buying habits. After receiving inspiration from the Singing Lady’s Rice Krispies radio jingle which had a snap, crackle and pop noise in the background, he drew three gnomes, naming them “Mr. Snap,” “Mr. Crackle, and “Mr. Pop.” Kellogg’s ad agency, N.W. Ayer, put Grant on an immediate retainer of $5000. The Kellogg Company used Grant’s talents through 1941 and paid him close to a quarter of a million dollars. Although modified from Grant’s original images, Snap!® Crackle! ® and Pop! ® are still used today and are among the most famous images in American advertising.
The Kellogg Company used Grant’s illustrations to promote and advertise a multitude of products from cereal boxes and nursery rhymes booklets to prints and premium mail-in offers.
Vernon Grant’s influence on Kellogg’s advertising campaigns extended beyond the creation of the famous cereal gnomes. Soon after Grant began working for Kellogg’s, a clever marketing technique was developed to include nursery rhyme stories on the backs of Rice Krispies® cereal boxes. He was assigned to do nine stories every six weeks and in the nine years he worked for Kellogg’s he turned out hundreds of illustrations for children’s tales. The stories and their illustrations grew so popular that Kellogg Company began including box-top coupons that families could mail in to receive elaborate full-color story and song booklets, large prints, decals, children’s notepads, ink blotters and much more---all illustrated by Vernon Grant. Such merchandising efforts firmly established Rice Krispies® as the premier children’s cereal and helped “Kellogg’s Singing Lady” radio program to become America’s most popular children’s show for an entire generation.