Unlike legions of others, Adam Clark is no Wawa superfan. The convenience store was not part of his upbringing in Central Pennsylvania, nor did he experience it until adulthood.
“I’m not someone who is going to drive out of my way just to get to the Wawa if I need to get gas or anything like that.”
Clark wondered about others’ obsession with Wawa. He couldn’t understand it. “It’s really a cult-like following,” he said. “If you meet someone who is obsessed with Wawa and you suggest that some other convenience store or gas station is better, they will go off on you about why Wawa is better.”
The enterprise reporter for New Jersey Advance Media noticed that’s especially true in South Jersey, where he said Wawa is so ingrained in the culture that people wear Wawa hoodies and even get Wawa tattoos. Some people, he said, even go there on their wedding night — intentionally.
Then, in 2021, the idea came to Clark: What if he explored that obsession? He envisioned not just an article about Wawa, but a larger story about people and why we form these relationships with brands.
His editor, Jeff Roberts, remembers the pitch coming during an annual project meeting where Clark brings him ideas for high-level stories. Roberts, an associate director at NJ Advance Media, remembers the project on Wawa was one of maybe two or three dozen ideas Clark delivered.
“The Wawa pitch jumped off the screen because it was unique. It was utterly fun. And it was something I knew no one else would have,” Roberts told Poynter in an email. “And when we discussed it in a follow-up meeting, it was clear he was engaged and had a special interest in seeing it through.”
Roberts also called it “the ultimate journalistic curveball” in the age of COVID-19 and war in Europe, and a chance to provide readers with a bit of sophisticated levity amid death and illness.
Roberts and Clark agreed that it wasn’t a hard sell. Roberts said he could visualize what the story could be in Clark’s hands and “how utterly original it would be.”
Clark thought his idea was greenlit easily because he said they know New Jerseyans love Wawa. “We know they love reading about Wawa,” he said, “And so it really was about, how would our audience want to consume a Wawa story? How do we meet people where they are, and how do we demand their attention? And I think that that approach — the oral history of Wawa — it makes you stop and say, ‘Wait, what?’”
Clark had never done oral history before, but he thought it’d be fun to try. “I thought it would be a really effective way to approach this topic that we know people love,” he said.
He also thought about story presentation, and how they would be able to present it in a way that would be fun and digestible, but still insightful and compelling. He started reporting it out in 2022.
In November 2023, NJ Advance Media published “The Oral History of Wawa,” a project in which Clark tells the story of Wawa from its origins to its place as a cultural phenomenon in New Jersey. He reports that NJ has the most stores among the six states where the chain operates. “The Garden State got its first taste in 1968. But expansion wasn’t enough for the Wood family,” the reporter wrote, in reference to the family behind the Wawa chain. “7-Eleven invented the convenience store concept. Wawa wanted to perfect it. It pounced on strategic advantages: clustering stores to block out competitors, operating on Sunday when others were closed and weaving itself into the very fabric of communities.”
“The Oral History of Wawa” is a multi-chapter journey that weaves quotes from sources, audio clips featuring some of their voices, and original and archival photos of Wawa’s past and present.
Clark said the reporting for this project was as rigorous as any other traditional in-depth enterprise project. “We didn’t cut any corners because it was an oral history, or because it was going to be an alternative presentation.”
Clark read two books about the history of Wawa. He interviewed more than 40 people for this project, reporting on the street and scouring Facebook groups to find sources. He visited a Wawa archive at a museum in Delaware. “I even spent time just standing in Wawa, observing what was happening to sort of put myself in that natural environment.”
Once all his reporting was complete, it was a natural evolution. Clark said NJ Advance Media teamed up with Carl Roberts, a freelance web developer who has previously worked with the publication. In “The Oral History of Wawa,” quotes from some of the individuals Clark interviewed are presented as a text message — with the source’s avatar, name and title. Clark said it initially looked like an AOL instant messenger chat room until it was changed to appear as a group text.
A still from “The Oral History of Wawa,” a project reported by Adam Clark of NJ Advance Media. (Courtesy: NJ Advance Media)
“And then we started finding ways to reward readers for sticking with the piece,” Clark said. “So we’ll drop in a stop motion video of somebody eating a hoagie here. We’ll throw in a vintage Wawa commercial there. What’s a parade of food coming across the screen? Let’s put audio in so you can hear some bonus material from the sources who are quoted.”
Clark said it was a team effort, with multiple departments coming together to produce the project.
Coffee and Wawa’s famous hoagies aside, “The Oral History of Wawa” also touched on “The Dark Days” — as Chapter 4 is titled. Clark reported that the convenience store chain “suffered through botched expansions” into Connecticut and New York in the ’80s and ’90s. A former Wawa CEO, a customer-turned Wawa consultant and more sources offered context about that time.
Clark having to report on a chain didn’t change his approach. “We know that Wawa’s a business and that their goal is to make money, and we were straightforward about that in the story,” he said. “I think that made it more interesting because it gave us a chance to tell a story about capitalism, and really understand how Wawa’s creation and evolution was driven by this need to survive. And, of course, one of the best ways to survive is to create a brand that people can identify with and come to see as part of their own identity.”
In April, Clark was announced a winner in the inaugural Poynter Journalism Prizes. He received The Punch Sulzberger Innovator of Year, which is sponsored by The New York Times and honors a journalist or organization that excels in new ways of executing the craft of journalism and whose work is a bold new approach. In addition to the prize, winners are awarded $2,500.
Since reporting on “The Oral History of Wawa,” Clark said his relationship to Wawa hasn’t changed much — other than the fact that his daughter really likes their soft pretzels. He estimates that he now stops by the convenience store once a week.
Maybe.
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