Fingos is a discontinued breakfast cereal snack from
General Mills
General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company ori ...
that lasted from 1993 to 1994. The cereal was advertised as a snack which confused consumers. The box was voiced in television commercials by comedian
Steve Mackall
Stephen James "Steve" Mackall (born December 9, 1959) is a Canadian-American voice actor, voice-over announcer, comedian, director, screenwriter and songwriter. He was known as the voice of NBC's Must See TV, and performed voice of the lead cha ...
.
Background
Fingos was worked on for three or four years prior to its release in 1993. It was a cereal that was meant to be eaten with fingers as a snack and without milk. The cereal pieces were shaped as
hexagon
In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°.
Regular hexagon
A ''regular hexagon'' h ...
s and were advertised as food that could be eaten at any time of the day. Analyst John McMillin said, "The idea here is to turn a cereal into a healthy snack" and that "it's a little like Pepsi and Coke trying to get people to consume their soft drinks in the morning."
Fingos were "lightly sweetened" and were released in one-serving bags or in boxes with the flavors being honey toasted oat and cinnamon. Each piece was "bigger than corn flakes but smaller than potato chips."
Consumers were confused by the marketing concept when Fingos were released due to it being advertised as a snack despite being in the cereal section.
Fingos were unsuccessful and were discontinued in 1994.
Advertising
The packaging for Fingos stated it was cereal and that it contained a similar number of calories to other breakfast cereal. Its packaging has "a wide grin depicting a person about to consume Fingos." General Mills had
focus group
A focus group is a group interview involving a small number of demographically similar people or participants who have other common traits/experiences. Their reactions to specific researcher/evaluator-posed questions are studied. Focus groups are ...
s, in which 1% of the group ate the cereal with milk.
The company spent $34 million to advertise the cereal in 1993 and Multi-Grain
Cheerios
Cheerios is a brand of cereal manufactured by General Mills in the United States, consisting of pulverized oats in the shape of a solid torus. In some countries, including the United Kingdom, Cheerios is marketed by Cereal Partners under the Ne ...
received similar treatment in 1992.
Posters were hung up in 32 large cities.
In order to have Fingos be kept secret from its competitors, General Mills used in-home research instead of releasing the cereal in
test market
A test market, in the field of business and marketing, is a geographic region or demographic group used to gauge the viability of a product or service in the mass market prior to a wide scale roll-out. The criteria used to judge the acceptabilit ...
s.
Comedian
Steve Mackall
Stephen James "Steve" Mackall (born December 9, 1959) is a Canadian-American voice actor, voice-over announcer, comedian, director, screenwriter and songwriter. He was known as the voice of NBC's Must See TV, and performed voice of the lead cha ...
voiced the cereal box in television commercials and he based the voice off
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comed ...
as the genie in the 1992 film ''
Aladdin
Aladdin ( ; ar, علاء الدين, ', , ATU 561, ‘Aladdin') is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It is one of the best-known tales associated with ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'' (''The Arabian Nights''), despite not being part o ...
''. The commercials were 15 or 30 seconds long and they were animated by
Kurtz & Friends.
The box in the commercials would say, "How wholesome am I?" and "Read my hips" while showing the cereal's nutritional information.
See also
*
List of breakfast cereals
This is a list of breakfast cereals. Many cereals are trademarked brands of large companies, such as Kellogg's, General Mills, Malt-O-Meal, Nestlé, Quaker Oats and Post Foods, but similar equivalent products are often sold by other manufacture ...
*
List of snack foods
This is a list of snack foods in alphabetical order by type and name. A snack is a small portion of food eaten between meals. They may be simple, prepackaged items, raw fruits or vegetables or more complicated dishes but they are traditionally co ...
References
{{reflist
Breakfast cereals
General Mills cereals
Products introduced in 1993
Products and services discontinued in 1994
American snack foods