A Cereal Dilema

I have been a fan of breakfast cereals for just about my entire life. As I have aged my tastes have changed and with that so have my selections that I make at the grocery store. I began thinking along these lines recently when I realized that looking at a cereal isle can sometimes be like looking at the various stages of your life.

This realization occurred recently when I went to the grocery store late one evening to pick up some items. As I arrived in the cereal aisle, I noticed a man about my age standing alone and just staring at the selection of cereals in front of him. It was at that moment that I suddenly noticed just how grocery retailers stock their cereal aisles. At one end of every aisle are the cereals you ate as a kid like the Fruit Loops and the Frosted Flakes. At the other end, however, are the cereals we are supposed to eat as adults such as Bran Buds and Granola. You could see that this man was struggling with the fact that he really wanted to head to the Fruit Loops but his conscious, and perhaps his wife, was telling him to go with the Bran Buds. His struggles were hitting home with me since I realized that I did the same thing myself. In the end he did what many cereal makers hope people in this situation do and that is pick something in the middle like Honey Nut Cheerios or Frosted Mini Wheats.

Kellogg’s, General Mills and Post likely realize that as adults we continually fight between what is fun and what is functional. The biggest marketing campaigns tend to be for the venerable middle of the aisle selections. Perhaps that’s why I like Oatmeal Crisp and Honey Nut Cheerios myself. However I think the cereal makers are missing the boat here in that they are forgetting just why it is that many of us as kids ate the cereals that we did. I mean yes they were sweet, which works for kids and yes they were fun, but really, admit it folks, we all loved the toys!

Why not create giveaways in cereal designed for specific groups of adults? You can tailor a brand to a specific demographic and make a fortune doing so. Special K tends to be a cereal that targets women who are health and image conscious. Well why not for a limited time, offer that when you buy a box of Special K, you will find inside a free vial of Botox? They can eat the cereal to maintain their figure and use the Botox to fix what the cereal can’t.

I also haven’t seen any cereal brands targeted specifically at the college-age crowd. How about creating a new brand especially for them keeping in mind what they would want. Perhaps instead of Honey Nut Cheerios we could see “Honey Brown Cheerios” or “Red Bull Bran Buds” Imagine the thrill of being full of energy and completely regular at the same time??

In the end though let us all remember that while there is a cereal called “Life”, we can learn a lot about our own "Life" by the cereal choices we make.  Think about that the next time you are choosing what to bring home for breakfast!