Wagon Wheels Adventure Club

When I was a kid, I loved joining clubs - I think it was the sense of 'belonging' to a group or something like that (yes, a terrible childhood, don't get me started!). ANYWAY, one of the clubs I joined was the "Wagon Wheels Adventure Club" from 1985 when I was 11. As I recall, the promotional material at the time promised an exciting club with the possibility of fantastic adventures with Indiana Jones! (this was hot of the back of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). What it delivered was a mixed bag of an experience, but still cool to have many of the things that came with the membership, and I'm very happy to be able to share them here.


Ultimately, what we have here is a good example of a mid-80s sales promotion. At it's corporate sales objective heart, the Wagon Wheels Adventure Club was designed to make kids, families and social groups buy a (somtimes staggering) amazing amount of Wagon Wheels in order to collect 'tokens' that could be redeemed for prizes. For those who don't know what Wagon Wheels are, they're two biscuits with marshmallow and jam in between, then coated with chocolate.

I often wonder about how successful the promotion was (with my marketing cap on). Let me take you through my recollections of the club.

Authentic Westons Wagon Wheels wrapper circa 1985 with 30 cent sticker.

Just for interest's sake, a comparison of the old packaging while the product was still owned by Westons and below, the current packaging as owned by Arnotts. Interesting to note Arnott's generosity of proving today's Wagon Wheel devotee an additional 3 grams of Wagon Wheel goodness!

Current Arnott's Wagon Wheels packaging.

Anyway, I digress! On the back of each Wagon Wheel wrapper were two tokens that you could then cut out and collect as below. These tokens were then amassed and traded in for prizes.

Another promotional tie-in with the club was with TV Week, I don't have any issues of these, but would love to collect them from the dates below. It appears that there was a regular exclusive competition plus the opportunity to claim bonus tokens.

Page from the Wagon Wheels Adventure Club Annual with detail on TV Week cross-promotion

I don't recall the process of actually joining the club, or where the membership form was found. But that doesn't matter - what I do recall is receiving the envelope in the post!

Authentic Wagon Wheels Adventure Club envelope! My old address of course is ancient history.

So, what was inside?? A welcome letter:

I don't have the Indiana Jones poster any more as mentioned in the letter, nor the glow in the dark stickers =/ but I do have my membership certificate!!

Also enclosed was the "Trading book", chock full of great prizes that could be redeemed from Wagon Wheel tokens. I did manage to redeem for one item, the first page that could be torn out. I don't remember what it was now, but it would have only been 20 tokens or so.

Wagon Wheels Adventure Club Trading Book

The prizes increased in their token cost and value, with a total of 24 items to choose from. Some examples are below:

Wagon Wheels Adventure Club - Rubber Torch or Magic Ball Puzzle

... through to....

...and this....

... to the ultimate prize ....

I calculated that you would need to organise the purchase of 5000 Wagon Wheels to get this! And at 30 cents a pop, you'd need to spend about $1500 to get your hands on this for your school, scout group or whatever!!



For the complete set, visit my flickr slideshow here

Awesome! So I was ready for "fun and excitement as I get caught up with Indiana Jones' daring adventures" (quote extracted from their welcome letter). All I needed to do was wait for the "Adventure Club Annual".

And it arrived.... I could taste that Indiana Jones goodness...

But, what's this? WHO IS THIS? WHO THE HELL IS THIS "IKE PRESTON?" I WANT INDY GODDAMIT!

Turns out Ike Preston was a former commando who served in the Vietnam war.

This was a total let-down as a kid.

Sure, the 'annual' (I only received one) had some interesting stories, artwork and puzzles....

BUT it wasn't Indiana Jones. If you're interested in seeing the whole magazine, you can view it here.

So what happened? My only guess is that something went horribly wrong with the licensing and George Lucas got greedy so they hastily replaced Indy with Ike. Judging from the lack of interest I had in completing the puzzles, I can only guess that I got bored and frustrated with inability to collect the tokens I needed to get something remotely cool from withtin the Trading Book plus the fact that Indiana Jones had disappeared I lost interest in it and stuck it all in a drawer.

Happily, I still have it to this day to share, and the kids get a kick out of it - I hope you did too!