kartooner

As a kid, I remem­ber the Kee­bler Elve’s com­mer­cials quite fondly. At the time I never really under­stood the con­nec­tion between the elves and Kee­bler, but I had no knowl­edge at that age of a key com­po­nent of mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing; branding.

Accord­ing to the Kee­bler Brands web site, the Kee­bler elves (includ­ing the main elf him­self, Ernie Kee­bler) are among the most rec­og­nized char­ac­ters in adver­tis­ing, right up there with Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Bud Light’s Spud MacKenzie.

The elves are sup­posed to sym­bol­ize ded­i­ca­tion, gen­eros­ity and good-naturedness as they work in a hol­low tree churn­ing out end­less amounts of Uncom­monly Good® prod­ucts, which include mainly snack items like cook­ies and crackers.

Paul David­son, author of Con­sumer Joe, recently blogged about whether or not it’d be bet­ter to be a Oompa Loompa or Kee­bler Elf;

Let me put it to you this way. Would you rather spend each and every day danc­ing around like a clown, singing songs for stuck-up chil­dren on a tour of your bosses’ choco­late facil­ity, con­stantly bend­ing at the knees (ouch, arthri­tis!), con­stantly hav­ing to wear weird flourescently-decorated striped M.C. Ham­mer stretch pants, and singing in rhyme… OR… Would you rather work in a nice lit­tle for­est, in a great house built into a tree (phat, baby!), and come up with great new and excit­ing ideas for cook­ies, crack­ers and other sweet treats which you, your­self, will always get credit for?

It breaks down this way. Would you rather be a slave or an entrepreneur?

It’s inter­est­ing how these lit­tle elves are per­me­nantly ingrained in our minds as “do good­ers”, the per­fect worker, tiny entre­pre­neurs who do one thing right; cre­at­ing sug­ary good­ness for sweet-toothed consumption.

I don’t know about you, but every time I pass by a Kee­bler pack­age sit­ting there on the shelf I often won­der if a Kee­bler elf might’ve acci­dently fallen in, wait­ing there for me to pur­chase the box so I can take him home and release him back into the wild to con­tinue his (or her) quest for snack good dominance.