Nougat manufacturers of Jijona: advertising, brands and commercial strategies (1850-1936)

Abstract

The Industrial Revolution sparked an unprecedented race to capture consumers’ attention. Some products took time to gain acceptance among their target audience. Others enjoyed extraordinary success. This was the case with the nougat produced in the small town of Jijona: within a single, whirlwind century, it conquered the domestic market and established itself abroad. This sweet, made from honey and almonds, egg white and sugar, was produced in workshops and factories in various parts of Spain (and the Americas), but its generic brand names were Jijona for soft nougat and Alicante for hard nougat. Jijona thus entered the Spanish consumer’s imagination as synonymous with soft nougat. This study reconstructs the process of production, distribution and consumption of nougat produced in the main production centre, Jijona. It examines how the manufacturers-merchants of the first half of the 19th century managed to establish a sales network across the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa and the Americas which, over time, through mechanisation and the concentration of production, served to build large companies. Similarly, each stage of the process was characterised by different approaches to the domestic and international markets, and this brings us straight to the history of advertising and attention-grabbing marketing. It began with the presence of Jijona’s traders, who proclaimed at the top of their voices that their product was the only authentic one; then came press advertising backed by medals won at trade fairs or as suppliers to the Royal Households; and finally, brands emerged—often associated with illustrious surnames in the world of nougat-making—along with strategies for positioning the product in the market.