Toy Car Advertising Not So Charming

Mother Davis appeals to the goddess Ceres as she considers the outcome of her grandson’s morning meal, and comments,

As a grandmother, I love Cheerios. They’re made with whole grain oats, and the company that makes them, General Mills, recently announced that they’ll be putting whole grains into all the cereals that they produce. That’s a wonderful change that may contribute to increased health for many children.

However, this morning I found a move by General Mills that makes me a little less happy about giving my grandson their cereal. In the Cheerios box was a fun little toy – a plastic car that is propelled by a simple spring mechanism. When I gave this car to my grandson, he was pleased.

I felt that I had done my good grandmotherly deed for the day, until I saw the stickers that came along with the toy car, to decorate it. For a little car less than two inches long, there were no less than seven Lucky Charms stickers.

Without the stickers, the toy car looks kind of plain, but it works for an imaginative young mind. With the stickers, the car would look very slick, but it would be advertising a sugar cereal. My grandson would be running around the house with a little billboard for breakfast junk food, at no charge to General Mills.

At a certain level, that’s very clever of General Mills, but at another level, it’s counterproductive because it creates a shadow of ill will in my mind – corrupting the integrity of the Cheerios brand. It bothers me that General Mills is using one of its more healthy cereals to advertise, in my home, one of its less healthy cereals. General Mills knows children as well as any grandmother, and they know what’s going to happen when a kid plays with a toy car covered with Lucky Charms stickers – he’s going to go running to his parents and grandparents, whining over and over again that he has to have Lucky Charms cereal for breakfast from now on.

I wouldn’t give in to my grandson’s demands, but it bothers me that he would be provoked into making these demands. Through their clever little stickers, General Mills is trying to use my own grandson as a medium of advertising to me. As I would tell my grandson, if he had the sophistication to ask, that is not polite behavior.

There are some who justify this kind of advertising to children by saying that it reduces prices by bringing in revenue through marketing agreements. Thus advertising on toys is supposed to bring an economic benefit to the families of the children who tote these little billboards around the house with them throughout the day.

In this case, such an excuse for advertising unhealthy food to children doesn’t hold water, because the advertising is to another product made by the same company that makes Cheerios. There is no gain in advertising revenue for General Mills, because the deal is all internal.

No, as far as I can see, there’s no real benefit to my family in having those sugar cereal stickers come in the Cheerios box. My household just becomes an opportunity for product placement. Luckily, I caught the stickers before my grandson could see them, and realize that his car was missing something. Still, I resent having to screen the materials that come out of a cereal box. Consider that, General Mills, the next time your marketing department tells you that this kind of domestic advertising program makes good business sense.

Munching on it,
Mother Davis