Breakfast cereal companies need to do better
Cereal companies, you need to step up your game. I feel like you don’t even care about me any more. Minimal effort is being put in and it’s been noticed. By me, specifically, and probably no one else, but still.
Perhaps I just grew up in the cereal renaissance, but honestly, what’s going on here? Where’s the innovation, the drive, the creativity?
A couple months ago, I looked at the back of a box of Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch in my parents’ cupboard. I didn’t remember the last time I had even eaten Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch, let alone perused the fun zone on the back, so I decided to take a look at how it had evolved over the years. And you know what I saw? The same exact design on the back of the box from 15 years ago.
I would recognize that weird track and field competition going on the deck of Captain Crunch’s ship anywhere. The word problems I solved countless times as I ate my breakfast before school, the terribly easy maze, the girl on the uneven gymnastics rings that I’m only now realizing don’t really belong at a track meet. It was all there, all exactly the same.
What are we doing here Cap’n? Do you really think that the same exact fun zone on the back of the box is really going to entertain your audience for two decades? Are you really so comfortable that you think people will want to be crunch-atized with no effort on your part?
It wasn’t always this way. Back when I was a kid, they changed that fun zone on the back every once in a while to keep you wanting more. Trix had actual shapes instead of just being boring balls. Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s mascot was a weird old man named Wendell for some reason.
Best of all, half the time it wasn’t just cereal you were getting when you bought a box of cereal. No, there was usually a bonus prize that came with. Sure, were the toys that were mixed into the cereal usually pretty boring after two seconds and likely somewhat hazardous? Yeah, maybe. But it still livened up the experience and if I was going to choose between a box of Lucky Charms with no prize and a box of Cocoa Pebbles with a plastic spoon that lit up and looked like a lightsaber, you know that I was going for the Cocoa Pebbles.
Plus, sometimes the prizes in the cereal boxes were actually really good for some reason. Some of my favorite computer games from my childhood came out of cereal boxes, with Backyard Baseball and LEGO Rock Raiders and LEGO Island going down as all-time greats. There was one promotion where you got the entirety of the second Spiderwick Chronicles book split across five different mini-books.
Now I’m just stuck reading the nutrition label and getting depressed over how much sugar is in your standard bowl of Golden Grahams.
Well, I’m onto you now, cereal companies. We deserve better than this. We deserve innovation, thoughtfulness, creativity. We deserve… Oh wait. Huh. Looks like Cap’n Crunch just updated their design. Um…that’s…certainly a choice. Oh, Snap, Crackle and Pop are 3D abominations now too? Great, great… Okay, you know what, nevermind. Just, um, keep doing what you were doing. Nothing to see here. I’m just going to solve the Crunch-o-thon maze for the 100th time in silence. Carry on.
A C ERTAIN POINT OF V IEW
BY
NATHANIEL U NDERWOOD REPORTER
