The gruel crackled and sizzled turned into a crisp flake. The Washburn Crosby Company (later changed name to General Mills) bought the rights to the cereal. The company spent three years developing the product and introduced Wheaties breakfast cereal in 1924.
In 1924 General Mills first advertised Wheaties as the Breakfast of Champions, thereby tying cold cereal to star athletes.
Wheaties made advertising history as the first product to feature a singing commercial on network radio. Its first airing took place on Christmas Eve 1926. Sales increased in areas where the people heard the commercial.
At the 1939 Major League All-Star Game, forty sox of the events fifty-one players endorsed the cereal. Wheaties was marketed as an accompaniment to physical exercise leading to the goal of physical fitness. Most early Wheaties champions were men, with the swimmer Esther Williams a notable exception in 1959.
History of Wheaties
