Shame on you General Mills! Shame on you! I’m in the office the other day, and I receive an email from my boss which discusses advertising to children. The email, which is actually a copy and paste from Advertising Age, talks about how food companies are circumventing traditional advertising by using new media to target kids directly.
This OBVIOUSLY sparks a huge debate between Dark Prism and I about advertising to children, parental responsibility, and corporate liability. After about 40 minutes of healthy on-the-man’s-clock discussion (oh ya, f@$k da man!), we mention the article-sited millsberry.com (an internet endeavor by General Mills) and I go freakin’ nuts!
What the hell is it with these cereal companies anyway! Advertising to children? Please, that’s the least of my concerns. How about PROMOTING theft!
I mean seriously! I’ve been around for quite a few years now. I remember a less-PC world when McDonald’s came in styrofoam and sitcoms didn’t need a token black person. But things haven’t changed much for cereal commercials. I see cereal commercials every night on Cartoon Network that have little Timmy Two-fingers and slight-of-hand Sally trying to lift Lucky Charms from poor, defenseless Lucky the Leprechaun. I mean the poor guy has to keep inventing marbits (General Mills’ term for marshmallows) at breakneck speeds to simply stay one step ahead of these thieving bastards. Yellow moons didn’t work, so Lucky had to whip up Red Balloons. When the little shits figure that trick out, he had to make some shooting stars. Parents, are you watching what I’m watching?
Then there is the Trix rabbit. This guy isn’t as bad as the Lucky Charms children, since he is a HUGE F@$KIN’ TALKIN RABBIT that wants to steal FROM children. So I guess this at least instills some good qualities in our children, such as the life-long lesson of never trusting a HUMAN-SIZED RABBIT. I guess kids didn’t learn enough from Alice in Wonderland, General Mills figured they would help concrete this philosophy. Well watch your backs little American children, Trix Rabbit’s Asian cousin, Chinx Rabbit has your number FIGURED OUT!
Oh, and let’s not forget Coooooooooooookie Crisp. One of this cereal’s early mascots was the Cookie Crook, who would steal Cookie Crisp from the local flatfoot, Officer Crumb. At first, he was portrayed as a bit of a dupe, always losing out to the Cookie Crook, but eventually it was decided that having a criminal constantly thwarting a police officer was sending the wrong message to kids (source: wikipedia). Its amazing that a room full of advertising geniuses couldn’t figure out without first producing the mascots that maybe it was better for the COP TO WIN!
And just in case you didn’t notice, I find it ironic that all these products are General Mills cereals. Wonder if General Mills has any large contracts as a breakfast provider for correctional facilities. Guess that’s a topic for another blog post.