Kellogg’s is reintroducing toys in their breakfast cereals
SEVEN years ago Kellogg’s made the decision to stop including toys in their breakfast cereals, effectively removing the one good reason children had for getting out of bed every morning.
Well, the good news is Kellogg’s recognised the error of their ways and they’re back. This month they reintroduced toys into specially marked packs of Coco Pops, Sultana Bran, Rice Bubbles, Crunchy Nut and Just Right.
The toy of the moment is a spoon-straw, which means you can eat your Coco Pops with your spoon, and then suck up the chocolate milk with the same instrument.
Anyone over the age of 10 will have a slight touch of nostalgia for cereal box toys. They were first introduced in 1910 in the US and continued globally until 2009.
Iconic toys from Kellogg’s history include the empress of Australia model boat (1937), diamond jubilee badges (1984) and the Simpsons finger skateboard (2003).
That’s right. A skateboard. For your fingers.
So why were the toys removed in the first place?
According to Kellogg’s, “we change our priorities to ensure we’re giving our consumers what they want — we stopped putting collectables in packs to invest in other product innovations.
“But after getting positive feedback and requests from parents recently we decided to bring collectables back in pack — we wanted to celebrate the nostalgia by giving them a way to re-create the memories of opening up their cereal boxes in the morning to find a surprise inside”.
Breakfast cereal has had a bit of a bad rap of late. Childhood obesity rates are causing concern in Australia and some breakfast cereals have the sugar of two to three sweet biscuits in just one serve. So should parents be concerned about toys being used as an incentive for children to eat cereal?
Larissa Oliver, Shopper Activation Manager at Kellogg’s Australia told Kidspot that they did research in the Australian market before reintroducing the toys.
“When we did some research recently, 81 per cent of mums we spoke to thought it was a good idea for Kellogg’s to do these types of promotions,” she said.
“We listened to mums who loved the idea of collectibles, because we wanted to bring back the excitement of discovering them — like many of us (including me) enjoyed while growing up.”
Originally published as The big mistake that Kellogg’s just fixed