Snapple Chat

Wendy the Snapple Lady’s conversational style won fans and propelled a brand

- Stuart Elliott

FEATURING ACTUAL CONSUMERS IN ADS of professional pitch people is a hot marketing trend, but going for an authentic appeal while peddling products isn’t new.

Take Wendy Kaufman, aka “Wendy the Snapple Lady,” the focus of a hugely popular 1990s campaign that helped craft the brand’s image as an unconventional alternative to carbonated beverages. Kaufman appeared in dozens of commercials for Snapple, made personal appearances, worked with distributors, and even had a line of the drink named after her, Wendy’s Tropical Inspiration.

Kaufman, however, was neither traditionally telegenic (she is 5´2´´ and, using her own term, “heavy”) nor trained. She was discovered when Kirshenbaum & Bond, Snapple’s ad agency, decided to create spots celebrating loyalists who’d written fan letters to the brand. Kaufman, who worked in the order department at the Snapple headquarters on Long Island, had volunteered to answer those letters in her spare time because she remembered how she had felt when a fan letter she wrote to TheBrady Bunch’s Barry Williams was ignored.