Hubbard goes for soft sell on cereal

By DITA DE BONI

Dick Hubbard seems to be going back on a long-held stance of not using mass-media advertising for his breakfast cereals.

A week after the company published an ad for Hubbard's breakfast cereal at the back of the Listener, it appeared in a glossy women's magazine.

Mr Hubbard says the company is not anti-advertising and has, in fact, done plenty of it in the past, although the present full-page print execution is its biggest yet.

"About six years ago, I wrote a little bit in Clipboard [the company's newsletter found in each box of cereal], which said we would not engage in high-profile, flashy advertising, and explained our reasons for not doing so.

"For some reason, people assumed from this that we were anti-advertising, which is not true."

One of the company's latest newsletters gives its reasons for not commissioning the snazzy types of ads favoured by Hubbard's competitors, such as Sanitarium and Kellogg's.

He wrote: "When we advertise I believe we are really spending your money, as ultimately all costs in a business have to be recovered in our selling prices to you, our customer.

"We therefore have a 'moral' duty to spend your money wisely."

He adds that the company will not advertise directly to children, invoke "pester power" or "irritation" as a technique and will not "denigrate" the opposition or use comparative advertising.

Certainly, the latest execution - from Auckland agency Radiation - does not appear to contain too many of those bogeys.

Hubbard's ad shows a yellow background peppered with what looks like cut-outs of food such as a multigrain flake and a piece of "real apple".

Also shown is the company's logo, a caricature of Mr Hubbard and a "not strictly relevant" photo of Riley, the Hubbard pooch.

Mr Hubbard says the brief for the ad was something that drew attention to the product but which was "not gimmicky or way-out".

He says there are no plans to use television advertising at this stage, although it may be a medium-to-long term approach - presumably using the same low-tech style.