Food-Rules-Trix.jpg (JPEG Image, 2448 × 3264 pixels) - Scaled (22%) Sweet Spot: How Sugary-Cereal Makers Target Kids. Update Appended: Oct. 23, 2009 Before food politics became a Wikipedia entry and the title of a book, before anyone cared about trans fat or realized we were in the midst of a pediatric-obesity epidemic, Lucky Charms were simply magically delicious.
Now the cereal, along with other childhood favorites like Corn Pops and Cocoa Pebbles, is being labeled a public-health menace by Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. The center is trying to expose the marketing tactics that make kids clamor for a sugary start to the day, crispy calorie bombs that... Subscribe Now Get TIME the way you want it One Week Digital Pass — $4.99 Monthly Pay-As-You-Go DIGITAL ACCESS — $2.99 One Year ALL ACCESS — Just $30! CerealsChildren_Pediatrics_1.11.pdf (application/pdf Object) How Marketers Target Kids. 14 Bizarre Kids Cereal Boxes. Children’s cereal is big business. When your customer base thinks artificially colored and sugared cardboard is a gourmet meal, the stuff really should sell itself. Unfortunately, between you and the hyperactive brats there stands parents holding the purse strings and suggesting oatmeal or fruit instead.
Good cereal producers know the key is to utilize the surprising lung capacity and lack of social inhibition characteristic of children by having them throw tantrums in the middle of the crowded cereal aisle. To achieve successful tantrums, they must make the cereal irresistible. But sometimes the efforts are just plain weird, as these notable standouts show. Sugared cereals are like crack to little kids, and with Corn Crackos the Post Company wasn't trying that hard to hide this fact.
Watch the bird force his way onto an unsuspecting populace: The campaign uses time tested drug dealer methodology for trying to get new customers. Then the dealer adds a small price. Need more proof? 0Reddit.