Dubious Marketing Strategies

I love to eat. To eat too much really. I've been known to skip social occasions instead of missing meals. My stomach is either stretched to basketball size, just flattened a bit beneath my skin by the closet fat kid my body knows I am, or my brain ignores when it reaches capacity. Pastries and pies, ice creams and cakes, candies and cobblers, Honey Buns® and Nutty Buddies®, empty calories fill my dreams and fridge. I'm a certified carb receptacle; call it the fAtkins diet. Throw in some red meats and we're talkin' heaven.

So I'm like every food addict with a half-cup's concern about his long-term health. I exercise regularly. I eat forests worth of rainbow-colored salads, mountains of certified organic cereal (topped with Lucky Charms®), and hearty breads by the bag. And I pray my Olympic marathoner's metabolism never slows down. Then I can justify a 1/3-quart of ice cream and/or a 12-pack. Each and every night. I'm not trying to lose weight, I'm just not trying to gain what everyone jealous lettuce-wrap-snakin', portion-sizing motherfucker hopes I will.

Breakfast is my favorite time of the day besides dessert, and gettin' my nut. I go to bed early some nights just so I can get to breakfast quicker. Cereal is my crack; I eat 3-4 boxes a week. I pour piles of hearty, healthy but lightly sweetened whole grains so high the frosty tips shouldn't be a surprise. (Seriously, because as much as pretty bland excites me, a little iced out shredded wheat satisfies that sweet tooth; and about once a year, Tony the Tiger visits the cupboard).

Healthy cereals are an underappreciated market. They may not taste as fantastic as Fruit Loops® or Pops®, but they still satisfy, and not only on the proud-of-what-I'm-eating level. People say Kashi© brand, 100% whole grain products, for instance, taste like cardboard, but the fiber-rich flakes and clusters have never bothered me. In fact, I quite like them, though dining on paper products has been a personal fetish since kindergarten. A tooth-trigger serotonin-shooter kills my discriminatory tastes.

But to enjoy healthy cereals, regular eaters need a readjustment of expectations. Sure, the product textures, tastes, and colors differ from those hawked by talking animals and chocolate loving vampires, and are a little less enticing, but that doesn't necessarily mean worse. Still, most shoppers won't give healthy fare a chance. And in some cases, sub-poor marketing is to blame.

The health market's relatively simple, straightforward cereal lines -- whole wheat flakes, some granolas, and not a whole lot more -- need not adopt wackily likeable talking creatures and LSD-esque explosions of multicolor to sell cereals. But some products have already shot themselves in the mouth. Take, for example, the Kashi Good Friends® cereal line:

A High Fiber Trio of Flakes, Twigs and Granola

For all the good things fiber does for you, it deserves to be loved. So we baked up toasty, whole grain flakes, crispy bran twigs and sweet granola. You get a different crunch in every spoonful, plus nearly 50% of your daily fiber needs per bowl to make falling in love with fiber easy.

AND

A Crunchy Quartet of Flakes, Blossoms, Granola and Raisins

Fiber and taste buds, be friends. Good Friends Cinna-Raisin Crunch® is a delicious high fiber cereal you’ll enjoy waking up to. It’s a quartet of favorites all in one bowl – plump raisins, crunchy fiber blossoms, light and crispy flakes, and a tasty granola, all with a hint of real cinnamon. With 8 grams of fiber per serving, you’ll meet almost one-third of your daily needs.

Not only bland to the point I'm considering slit wrists to add color to my life, I'm baffled. Why would anyone want to buy these cereals? Let's start with the name, Good Friends®. It gives absolutely no indication of what the cereal consists of or might taste like. Customers have to pick up the box and read the description that says in too many words "laxative" to get an idea. Why make a cereal so mysterious when 99% of boxes spell out exactly what they are? Make it simple: Shredded Wheat; Frosted Flakes. For forgetting Americans are lazy fatasses, product identification gets a 0.

Does "Good Friends®" acknowledge the improved, regular relationship eaters will have with their toilet from their very first bowl? Or is the Kashi company appealing to raunchy dudes whose idea of a good fun time is getting together to take dumps? Dear Kashi, that's why Taco Bell was invented. My best guess: the company supposes eating this cereal will bring Kashi-fiends into daily stall-side contact with each other, where they can bond between gusty farts and plump plops.

And the odd box displays? Does the company intend to imply that by eating this cereal, multiracial friendships will be easier than ever to achieve? I don't know how to test that theory, but I guess one thing all cultures have in common is pooping. Anyway, are smiling faces -- too-happy-for-cereal faces, really -- behind a bowl of cereal really supposed to entice me to buy? What their faces say to me: "Hehe, I just pooted!" Or, "I can't believe we're getting paid for this shit. My picture's gonna be posted in groceries forever, because nobody's ever gonna buy this crappy cereal.” The black woman on the Cinna-Raisin Crunch® box seems the only sensible shit-celebrity, her awkward, seemingly faltering smile hinting she may have realized just a moment too late, “My fame’s gonna be synonymous with defecation."

Then again, c'mon, "crispy bran twigs" and "crunchy fiber blossoms?" It takes everything I have not to dance every time I read those words. Eating Good Friends® is a game in itself, filled with delightful surprises: "You get a different crunch in every spoonful." Oh, pleasant bites of excitement. Now I know why the people on the boxes are smiling!