Rather than as a platform for cheese or dips, Wheat Thins are marketed as an unaccompanied snack. The word crackers, once printed on the front of the box, has been replaced with the word snacks, and even the nutrition panel has banished the word, where a serving size in the original flavor is “15 pieces.” Flavors more familiar to the snack aisle have been introduced, including spicy buffalo and zesty salsa in 2012.

Commercials have shown Wheat Thins stirring the sort of ardor in consumers that no saltine ever could. The newest commercial opens with a man in pajamas sitting in his kitchen, a box of Wheat Thins nearby. It is nighttime, and as he puts a contraption on his head, his wife, also in pajamas, enters the kitchen and asks what he is doing.

“Using night-vision goggles to keep an eye on my Spicy Buffalo Wheat Thins and make sure nobody touches them,” he says.

“Who’s going to take your Wheat Thins?” she says.

“Um, I don’t know,” he says, “an intruder, the dog, Bigfoot, Ted from next door.”

She turns off the light and the screen goes dark. There is the sound of a struggle in the kitchen and she turns on the light to reveal her husband clinging to the shoulders of an abominable snowman.

“Honey, I was close, it’s a yeti!” he shouts, as their neighbor runs into the kitchen and steals the Wheat Thins.

The spot closes with the new slogan for the brand: “Must. Have. Wheat Thins.”

The commercial, which will be introduced in Super Bowl pregame coverage on Feb. 3, is by the New York office of Being, part of the TBWA Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group.

Wheat Thins, which declined to reveal expenditures for the campaign, spent $19.4 million on advertising in the first nine months of 2012, more than the $18.6 million it spent for the full year of 2011, according to Kantar Media, a unit of WPP.

Lisa Topol, a creative director at Being, said that while the commercial was a fantasy, it grew out of interviews with fans whose attachment was startling.

“When we interviewed people about Wheat Thins, they used words like ‘I want to marry them,’ and, ‘If you take them away, I’ll die,’ ” said Ms. Topol. “They would get slightly almost insane when they talked about it, and say things like, ‘I love them more than my wife.’ ”

Nowhere in the commercial does anyone eat the product, or say it is toothsome, but Brett Edgar, a group account director at Being, said the commercial aimed to depict an emotional connection to Wheat Thins rather than sell them overtly.

“More conventional snacks would have a bite-and-smile, but we’re taking it to a more own-able, unique place for Wheat Thins,” said Ms. Edgar.

Harry Balzer, an analyst at NPD Group and the author of its annual Eating Patterns in America study, pointed to an upsurge in snacking. The three fastest growing foods in the country over the last decade in terms of consumption are yogurt, nutrition bars and chips, said Mr. Balzer, adding that all are popular between meals.

Negative attitudes about snacking have been dissipating, with 43 percent of Americans in 2012 saying that they tried to avoid snacking, down from 71 percent in 1985, according to NPD.

“You don’t have to go far in the food world to find that everyone is interested in snacks because we’re moving toward how to eat without cooking,” Mr. Balzer said.

In a promotion leading up to the Super Bowl that began on Jan. 20 and runs through Sunday, the brand is pitting fans of the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens against one another on Twitter and Instagram.

Users in each city are hoping to post the most messages on the social media platforms that include the hashtag #musthavewheatthins with either #BAL or #SF. In the city that wins, 1,000 consumers will receive a delivery on Super Bowl Sunday of a 10-box assortment of Wheat Thins, valued at about $37. To win, beginning on the morning of the Super Bowl, participants in the victorious city will have to be among the first 1,000 within a set geographic area to register over Twitter.

The deliveries will be made by 30 branded vehicles, each with two Wheat Thins representatives, who, along with dropping off the snacks, are being encouraged to linger to watch a play or two when recipients are welcoming.

A real-time counter at musthavewheatthins.com is tracking the competition, with the digital execution of the promotion by AKQA, part of WPP.

Wheat Thins, which has more than 61,000 fans on Twitter, had a promotion called Twitterventions beginning in 2010. Consumers who were not intentionally reaching out to the brand, but just mentioning it in posts, received unannounced visits from a crew from the brand, with a forklift depositing an entire pallet of Wheat Thins on their property. Some were captured by a film crew and featured in commercials.

Katie Williams, marketing director for wholesome crackers at Mondelez International, which owns the Nabisco brand, said that the latest social-media promotion, like the new advertising, is meant to expand the ranks of Wheat Thins fanatics.

“This is based on the premise coming from our fans who view Wheat Thins as more than a snack and is really about this passionate relationship,” Ms. Williams said. “We wanted to celebrate that relationship in an entertaining way and hopefully lead others to discover that love, and entice them to join that clan, as we call it.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/business/media/old-line-snack-is-highlighting-fervor-of-fans.html?partner=rss&emc=rss