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Bringing MoonPie to the masses Richmond ad agency lands sweet gig: producing treat's first TV spot BY BOB RAYNER, TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Y'all probably know right much about the MoonPie. It's sweet. It's chewy. It's got a heart of marshmallow. It's pretty near heaven when you wash it down with an ice-cold RC Cola. So when you're making the first-ever TV commercials for a sure-fire Southern icon, you need to be real careful. That might be why the folks who've been making MoonPies since 1917 -- the Chattanooga Bakery out of Tennessee -- decided on some Richmond ad types to do the job. Big River Advertising calls Shockoe Slip home and now it's proud to call MoonPie one of its best customers. "MoonPie was very concerned, as all authentic brands should be, about alienating their core constituency," said Fred Moore, Big River's president. "I'm from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, so I understand the reverence for MoonPies." Big River figured it would skip using actors and make a couple of commercials chock full of regular Richmond folk, bringing out a little down-home flavor. "The MoonPie people are as genuine as can be," Moore said. Terry Taylor, the agency's creative director, who hails from Alabama, said, "We went out and found ordinary people -- moms, a local businessman, local children and a teacher at one of our kid's school." The commercials remind us that MoonPies are a simple pleasure in this busy old world. Like the ad says, "A little MoonPie can change the world." And we are talking little MoonPies here. Big River is touting Mini MoonPies, which are about half the size of their big brothers and came out a few years back. "The research showed a big MoonPie can be just a little too big for kids," Moore said.
Tory Johnston, vice president of marketing for Chattanooga Bakery, said Big River "came up with some really brilliant creative work that tapped into the emotional appeal of MoonPie. I know it sounds funny to say that about a snack." No need to explain, sir. Taylor, the creative director, got a mighty good review from his mom in Alabama. When she heard he's been coming up with ads for MoonPie, she told him: "Well, you finally made something of yourself." |
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Right now, MoonPie's testing out the commercials in Charlotte, N.C., and Birmingham and Montgomery, Ala. If things work out down there, y'all might see them in Richmond before long.