The name is a shortened version of vanilla, the flavor profile common to all Nilla-branded products. Originally marketed as Nabisco Vanilla Wafers, the product's name was changed in 1967 to the abbreviated form, Nilla Wafer.[1] Originally a round, thin, light wafer cookie made with flour, sugar, shortening, eggs[2] and real vanilla, Nilla wafers have been primarily flavored with synthetic vanillin since at least 1994, a change which prompted criticism.[3][4] Nilla wafers are described as having "natural and artificial flavor", according to the ingredients list on the box.[5]
Nilla produced a variety of spin-off products, including pie crusts. The crusts were introduced in 1992 alongside pie crusts flavored like two other Nabisco cookie brands, Oreos and Honey Grahams.[6]
The recipe for vanilla wafers or sugar wafers was invented in the late 19th century by German-American confectioner Gustav A. Mayer on Staten Island.[7][8][9] He sold his recipe to Nabisco, and Nabisco began to produce the biscuits under the name Vanilla Wafers in 1898.[1] By the 1940s, Vanilla Wafers had become a major ingredient in the Southern cuisine staple banana pudding, and Nabisco began printing a banana pudding recipe on the Vanilla Wafers box.[10][11] The name of the product was not changed to "Nilla Wafers" until 1967.[1][12]
In 2013, the brand launched an advertising campaign on Facebook and other social media websites targeted at mothers, a campaign noted by the New York Times as unique because Mondelez International, the company that Kraft created to own the brand, spent its advertising dollars on social media rather than a combination of advertising platforms. The campaign resulted in a 9% increase in sales for Nilla.[13] Nabisco had previously used other marketing techniques to promote the brand, including in-person events such as sponsoring banana pudding pie eating contests at amusement parks.[14]
Nilla wafers are a common ingredient in banana pudding and are consequently popular in the American South. In Atlanta and Houston, they are consistently in the five best-selling cookie brands.[15]
The wafers themselves are commonly used to facilitate the oral administration of various compounds or medications to rats in testing.[16] Nilla's branding has been used to study consumer preferences about variations in packaging.[17]
^"Meet Gustav A. Mayer". Zinn Brilliant. Retrieved 4 November 2019. Mayer moved to the U.S. in the late 1850s at age 19. In the 1880s Mayer's mold-making experience led him to design a line of indirectly-lit, tin Christmas ornaments.
^Office, Library of Congress Copyright (1967). Commercial Prints and Labels. U.S. Government Printing Office. Nilla vanilla wafers are the same sweet Nabisco vanilla wafers with a brand new name.
