Square Bagels

A routine line-extension becomes a game-changing innovation for Thomas' Bagelbread.

You might say this is the story of how a round bagel became a square meal.

The story begins when a Thomas' sales representative suggested they should make a square bagel. This wasn't an entirely original thought — after all, fresh bagel stores had been making them for years.

Still, Thomas' felt this shape variation could be a logical line-extension that would bring incremental revenue and fresh news to their current bagel business. And, as the number one maker of prepackaged bagels in the United States, it also made sense that Thomas' provide the same variety and novelties as a fresh bagel store.

Approaching this as a relatively simple-to-execute line extension, Thomas' launched square bagels in an Albany test market in June, 2005. With the descriptive name "Bagel Squares," the product met with moderate success.

Before rolling Bagel Squares out nationally, Pankaj Talwar, vice-president of marketing at Thomas', a division of George Weston Bakeries, who was in charge of the product launch, felt intuitively that it might do better with a more compelling name. So, Thomas' set out to do some research with consumers, with the intention of making the name more engaging. It's at this time that they asked us, as their innovation agency, to help with the naming work.

None of us could have predicted at the time — or been more surprised by — where the naming research led us.

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