Trix in the Cereal Eye-sles

            On television, there are a multitude of advertisements playing for children’s cereals. These commercials will often contain an animated cartoon with a repeated catchphrase such as “going cuckoo for Cocoa Puff” or “Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids!” This later helps the child remember which cereal he or she wanted to buy. Not only do these companies try to reach out to the child through television advertisements, these companies try their best in stores too. Anyone who has shopped with a child or seen a child picking which cereal they want next know that many of them are indecisive, and by indecisive I do not mean that the child cannot pick one, but instead, he or she wants to pick all of them. In middle school during a graphic arts class, we learned about strategies designers used to entice children to pick a certain brand over another. One of the main strategies that many people already know about, before even designing the cereal, is that the children’s cereal will be placed on the lower shelves in the supermarket, while the cereal for adults are placed higher up. This is because the children are shorter and therefore will see this cereal first.

            One of the graphic tricks that I used was to use an animated character, since cartoons often appeal to many kids, and brighter and lighter colors that reflected the supposed “taste” of the cereal. Apple Jacks cereal is known to have a bright green color, the same color of a Granny Smith apple, which seems to imply all the tastes of the original apple. Let us also face that many of us are human, and most humans enjoy being happy. Very rarely do people associate happiness with the darker colors, like black or brown, and usually think happy colors are yellow and a bright green. This, of course, is not considering the other kind of “happy” whose colors are pictured as fifty different shades of gray, if you’re into that kind of stuff.

            A group of researchers from Cornell University did another study on whether or not eye contact from cereal boxes would increase a type of “brand trust” with them. I had not even thought about this. It makes more sense the more I think about it though. When a person makes eye contact with a person while talking, it usually brings a deeper level of trust into the conversation, while a person with shifty eyes, like many people do in books, usually means the person is lying or at least does not give the full truth. This, although a small design, does grant a bit more money to the company for minimal effort.