Thursday, October 15, 2009

Cereal Boxes and Advertising Slogans

Remember as a kid, sitting at the breakfast table, bowls of increasingly-soggy cereal in front of you, fighting with your siblings over who gets which box?

I remember the cereal boxes with the maze, that was pretty easy, but if you examined each detail very carefully you could stretch it to take up the amount of time it takes to consume an entire bowl of sickly-sweet soggy cereal. There was one particular box that I loved, and despite our enjoyment of the particular cereal inside, my siblings and I continuously begged my mother to buy it.

There are a number of gimmick on boxes, such as Resses Puffs, which has a list of seventeen things you should do before you are seventeen. Sadly, I think I did about two of them.

One of the most intelligent boxes are those with recipes printed on them. Take Chex for example. Nobody in my family knows which kind of chex they like best. We just like the one with the recipe for "muddy buddies" on the box.

Some cereal boxes have gimmicks such as their own characters (i.e. snap, crackle and pop). Others have contests or even little prizes. But nothing beats the one I saw today.

I am sure that slogans are important to advertising. Surely a clever looking cereal box that also has a great slogan on it is a real winner. I hope nobody gets fired over this, but has anyone else noticed that the fiber one box has the world's most ridiculous slogan?

Cardboard, no.
Delicious, yes.TM

How come a pie of pizza doesn't need that slogan printed on the box? Imagine going to your local bakery and ordering a danish, only to find that it's been wrapped in a bag printed to say "this is delicious, not cardboard." Or what if you would buy a bag of chips with a "not cardboard" warning. Isn't that kind of ridiculous? If something is really delicious, they don't need to tell you that it's not cardboard, do they?

7 comments:

itsagift said...

It should've said "dog food, no" because it looks like dog food! :)

Jessica said...

Seems pretty clever to me. Though people are more health conscious there are still plenty of people out there who think that healthy food tastes, well, like cardboard.

Freeda said...

I beg to differ. The most common remark about high fiber/healthy cereals is, "it tastes like cardboard" as many do. Fiber One, however, does not. By this slogen, they are trying to set themselves apart from the rest. I found this quote quite cute, especially with the graphics....Fiber One is delicious! Mmmm....

thinking out loud said...

er, when i hear/see fiber one, i think of dog food :-/

Inspired said...

Weird, never realized it.

(fiber can taste like cardboard.)

Mikeinmidwood said...

Reeses has 18 things to do before 18 not 17 before 17. For fiber one there is a commercial that asks where the fiber is, cardboard has fiber so they are saying the fiber isnt in the cardboard dont eat it, but the cereal has it. Dont get me wrong its still a far stretch just not like you put it.

Something Different said...

IAG- Yeah, it sure does. Lol.

Jessica- there are plenty of people who think all blogs are boring. But I don't advertise BOSD as being un-boring. (MAybe cuz it is. Who knows?) IYKWIM

Freeda- which others are so bad?

TOL- I eat fiber one daily. Does that make me a dog? ;-)

Inspired- Ever ate Wasa crackers? they even LOOK like cardboard!

MIM- After I wrote it I realized my mistake. Thanks...been a while since I ate reeses. :-D