Not So Wonderfilled

Curator's Note

When sugar is made into candy and desserts, it takes on magical qualities. Sugar can stand for pure imagination. Sugar can create an entire world. Sugar can also represent wonder.

In May 2013, Oreo launched their “Wonderfilled” campaign, starting with a 90-second spot which ran during “Married to Jonas” and “Mad Men.” This spot captured the attention of advertising professionals and cynical adults (sometimes one in the same). The commercial evokes feelings of wonder and reminds viewers that magic can exist in the world. There is no room for cynicism between two cookies - that space is filled with creme.

Oreo went on to run additional spots over the next year, employing a lot of different musicians in the process: Chiddy Bang, Kacey Musgraves and Chromeo, to name a few. The childlike campaign is enough to melt hearts of ice.

Of course, on the other side of this exists the reality of sugar.

In the United States, an estimated 93 million people are affected by obesity, and at the root of the issue is sugar. Kids watch an average of about 10 food-related commercials per day, and 98% of these ads are for products high in fat, sugar and sodium.

These issues lead to bigger questions. Is the happiness and wonder proposed by Oreo worth the negative long-term health effects of their cookies? Should companies that sell high-sugar products be required to warn consumers about the risks of eating their products? Does Oreo care about the happiness of their consumers? If so, shouldn’t they equate long, happy lives with health?


Thanks, Sammi, for this keen post. I found myself smiling during the commercial, which of course made me feel like a wonderfilled chump. Your point about the reality of sugar is an alarming one. And it's probably no linguistic coincidence that companies such as Nabisco launch "campaigns," even ones armed with faux-cream. I suppose the big question for me is whether the link between sugar and wonder can be recuperated? The consumption of sugar in the U.S. is certainly immoderate, but that excess might not mean there isn't a more moderate degree of sugar consumption, where wonder can still thrive. I think, for example, of the scene in the Little House series where the kids get to make maple candy in the snow as a Christmas treat. There's wonder, and those kids certainly weren't worrying about obesity. It's a goofy example, for sure, but I'd like to think Oreos and their processed likes haven't tainted all our sugary smiles.

Good point, Eric. I think the biggest difference between the simple pleasures of maple candy versus consuming Oreos is in the simplicity itself. Everything is fine in moderation, but the composition of maple syrup is very different from highly-processed sugars to begin with. A good piece of advice I've heard about candy, desserts and fast food is that you should feel okay about eating it if you make it yourself. Think about how infrequently you'd eat cookies or fries if you forced yourself to make them from scratch every time. Americans are being told they're too busy to make food at home, and food companies are here to help make busy lives easier. This leads to shelf-stable products with far from fresh ingredients. A balance needs to be struck with any kind of food, but when serving sizes on Oreos are so small and people easily surpass them, and you burn almost no calories picking them up from the store before you eat them, it doesn't seem like moderation is easy to accomplish. Couple that with the addictive power of sugar and our easy access to it compared with previous generations and balance becomes harder. You've definitely given me things to think about. Thanks!

Thanks Sammi for this excellent post! I especially think that your comments about moderation and wonder are extremely insightful. To some extent, your piece raises the question of why is it that, as a society, our beliefs about wonder often directly are linked to food or other commodities rather than being considered based upon their larger significance, meaning, and/or function within our culture? In other words, what might our relationships to moderation and simplicity be if we take wonder out of the context of consumption? How might our ideas about wonder be shaped in alternative ways beyond consumption?

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