Apple Jacks is a brand of cereal

Breakfast cereal

A breakfast cereal is a food made from processed grains that is often, but not always, eaten with the first meal of the day. It is often eaten cold, usually mixed with milk , water, or yogurt, and sometimes fruit but sometimes eaten dry. Some cereals, such as oatmeal, may be served hot as porridge...

 produced by Kellogg's

Kellogg Company

Kellogg Company , is a producer of cereal and convenience foods, including cookies, crackers, toaster pastries, cereal bars, fruit-flavored snacks, frozen waffles, and vegetarian foods...

 and targeted mainly at children. It was introduced to the U.S. as "Apple O's" in 1965 after being invented by William Thilly, now a professor at MIT. In 1971 the name "Apple Jacks" was put into action by advertisers. The product is described by Kellogg's as a "crunchy, sweetened multi-grain cereal with apple and cinnamon."

Originally, all Apple Jacks cereal pieces were orange

Orange (colour)

The colour orange occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum at a wavelength of about 585–620 nm, and has a hue of 30° in HSV colour space. It is numerically halfway between red and yellow in a gamma-compressed RGB colour space, the expression of which is the RGB colour wheel. The...

 and O-shaped, although they have become brighter and more orange colored over the decades. In 1998, O-shaped green

Green

Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometres. In the subtractive color system, it is not a primary color, but is created out of a mixture of yellow and blue, or yellow and cyan; it is considered...

 pieces were introduced. On December 8, 2003, as part of a marketing promotion, the orange jacks remained O's but the green jacks were X's for a while (actually, 'jack' shaped, from jumping jacks, the campaign was made as adults made the cereal make 'more sense', as with the flavor), and in summer 2005 the green jacks were figure-8's (double O's) for a period of time.

More recently, Apple Jacks has introduced New Apple Jacks 'Crashers' - a unique cereal piece that replicates a mid '07 advertising execution when mascots Bad Apple and CinnaMon were accidentally fused together. The latest (limited) edition, in 2010, are Apple Clones, with red pieces shaped like apples.

Advertising

The first Apple Jacks mascot in the 1960s was "Apple Head", a figure made from cutting a face onto an apple and applying a hat and pieces of cereal for eyes.

In the late 1960s the box depicted an "Apple Car" with pieces of cereal for wheels.

Around 1971, the official mascots became "The Apple Jacks Kids", a simplistically drawn animated boy and girl duo. The commercials featured the children singing and tumbling around. Their reign lasted almost twenty years, making them the most well-known Apple Jacks mascots and most universally associated with the cereal in the public's memory. During this time, the Apple Jacks jingle became an integral part of the ad campaign: "A is for apple, J is for Jacks, Cinnamon-toasty Apple Jacks!" This campaign was retired in the late 1980s.

A television ad campaign in the 1990s featured children expressing their enjoyment of Apple Jacks, regardless of its lack of apple flavor. The slogan for this campaign became "We eat what we like". The shift toward marketing cereals directly at children signaled the growing recognition of children's influence on family purchases.

As of 2011, the marketing mascots are a care-free Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

n cinnamon stick named CinnaMon and an accident-prone apple named Bad Apple. Labeled as Apple Jacks Adventures in print advertising, the commercials focus on CinnaMon upstaging Bad Apple by reaching a bowl of Apple Jacks before he can, in spite of the apple's attempts to stop him. Due to legal troubles, Bad Apple's antagonistic nature was dropped; Apple and CinnaMon were then portrayed as highly competitive friends, both getting into the bowl. The campaign was slated to be retired in 2007, and replaced by a retread of the 1990s campaign focused on children, but fan response to Apple and CinnaMon helped them remain as the mascots. In 2007, Apple and Cinnamon were fused together with Cinnamon sticking through the center of Apple with both of their legs at the bottom of their body. They remained this way for a few of the commercials until they became unstuck by a special machine. In 2009 Apple and Cinnamon were transported out of their cartoon world to the real world of New York City, where they continue to race each other to the bowl where they would enter the bowl at the same time.

Taglines

• New Kellogg's Apple Jacks, apple good for breakfast or snacks, cinnamon toasty, apple tasty, a bowl a day keeps the bullies away. (1960s-late 1970s)
• Apple Jacks will not be sold to bullies (often printed adjacent to a red-haired boy with glasses) (1960s-late 1970s)
• A is for apple, J is for Jacks. Cinnamon toasty Apple Jacks! (1980–1992)
• We eat what we like. (1992–2004)
• Apple Jacks. Where the sweet taste of CinnaMon 'Is the winna-mon'. (2004–2007)
• Apple Jacks. Where the sweet taste of Cinnamon, and Apples, is the winna-mon' (2007–2008)
• Apple Jacks. Apple or Cinnamon? Who will be the winna-mon? (2008–2009)
• Apple Jacks. The great taste of apples and cinnamon make the great taste that's always the winna-mon. (2009–present)

Nutrition

According to the label on the box, in 2010, each 28 gram serving had 100 calories, three grams of dietary fiber

Dietary fiber

Dietary fiber, dietary fibre, or sometimes roughage is the indigestible portion of plant foods having two main components:* soluble fiber that is readily fermented in the colon into gases and physiologically active byproducts, and* insoluble fiber that is metabolically inert, absorbing water as it...

, and 12 grams of sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

. The front of the box indicated that the inclusion of fiber was a change from previous versions of the cereal.