Bad Advertising Part 5: Kellogg’s Cereal Killers
Bad advertising is the fun pause that refreshes here on UsefulArts.
On our previous bad advertising safaris, we’ve:
- Found the the worst law firm ad ever, and helped get it pulled down.
- Treated the airport as a museum of misfit ads.
- Pointed out that UPS has a pretty bad tagline.
- Chronicled the offensive or silly use of President Obama’s image (you be the judge).
Our fifth ad advertising foray takes us to the grocery store. Some of the finest talents in consumer-packaged goods design and manage Kellogg’s cereal boxes. The cereal aisle is tough, because it is hyper-competitive, and because the packages must connect with adults and kids with radically different (and often preposterous) value propositions.
Kellogg’s Rice Krispies and Fruit Loops Aspire to Pharma Aisle
Does Rice Krispies really help my child’s immunity more than, say, fresh fruit? And though Froot Loops now provides fiber, isn’t it still loaded with crap that most adults wouldn’t intentionally feed to their kids? What’s a better source of fiber: “Fruit” or “Froot”? Go ahead, pick any froot.
And (for any Kellogg’s staff now joining us) good job on including the vitamin source of your antioxidants, as required by the FDA, in a way that makes it look like an additional nutritional claim. Poetry in packaging persists.
Kellogg’s Soylent Green, Now With More Girls!
Wieneke’s first law of advertising is to avoid associating your product with death.
Perhaps a derivative of this should be not associating food products with illness. Somewhere, a brand manager loved this wacky retro game enough to willingly put a cartoon of a sick person on their package, and the giant word “Operation” across its top.
Isn’t Operation a game where you win by pulling parts out of a patient’s body?
Look at the man’s face: does it say “eat my remains” or “stay away“?
Even though it’s made with real fruit, the rest of this design screams medical waste.
Are there ads that just seem wrong, or that need further comment?
Let me know on Twitter, or by email: strategy2.0<at>gmail.com. I’m always glad to get ideas, guest posts, and encouragement for a brief respite from online marketing law.
The future of digital experiences will be built by strategists who grasp the full array of emerging business, social, and technical models. Specialties in user experience, branding, application design, and data science are laying the foundation for richer user experiences and business models breakthrough products and revenue based marketing.
10 Responses to "Bad Advertising Part 5: Kellogg’s Cereal Killers"
February 28, 2010
I’m running out right now to buy some Froot Loops to help boost my kids’ fiber intake (NOT)! Gotta love it!
November 12, 2010
[…] Bad Advertising Part 5: Kellogg’s Cereal Killers Some packaged goods you might not want to consume. […]
November 25, 2010
[…] companies lie about their products’ ability to bolster immunity during an epidemic, cars accelerate for no apparent reason, and pharma companies market […]
March 8, 2011
[…] companies lie about their products’ ability to bolster immunity during an epidemic, cars accelerate for no apparent reason, and pharma companies market […]
July 18, 2015
It’s great to find soenmoe so on the ball
October 30, 2019
[…] turning what might otherwise could be an annoyance in to critique safari. Airports are like museums of bad advertising. As always, I invite you to join me in this enterprise. Have fun, and please send me your bad ad […]
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