#695 – Incentive
Posted on February 9, 2009 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comics
Even now as an adult I can be swayed by the free toy that comes in cereal. I wonder if that exact strategy would work on more grown-up products. “Hmm… I’m having trouble deciding between these two sump pumps… well the Black & Decker model does come with the Little Nemo bath toy…”
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I used to always get cereal just for the toy when I was little lol
Jeeze, who has the idea to get all that Super Noodle Bran?
Heck, I wanna know how a car thief *found* Biff’s invisible green car!
I don’t see those toys anymore o_o
Not that i will collect them anyway.
Supermarket week?
Hey, I thought Biff was alone… now all of a sudden there’s a thief, AND an insurance guy. Are you telling us he’s both of them, too?
@reynard61
An invisible thief, obviously. One with a taste for invisible green.
Biff’s inner child isn’t very inner.
I miss toys in cereal
@Reaper – When did I ever say that Biff was alone?
I am noticing some stores include plushies and whatnots with DVDs and stuff like that. Haven’t seen toys in the cereal for over 10 years, although we did get a monopoly CD-ROM once a couple years back, and is actually the longest lasting cereal toy we’ve ever had.
As for “grown up products,” I chose the car I drive because it had radio controls built onto the steering wheel.
Hmm…I have a conundrum.
Most of the things I buy ARE toys…
<–college student
Just because you get a paycheck doesn’t mean you’re an adult.
The best prize to ever be included in a box of cereal had to be chex quest.
I think i still have a disc of it lying around someplace
Super… noodle… bran?
Noodle? Noodle cereal? That’s just… wrong…
This is a good marketing technique.
@Drakey: Lies!!!!!!!
@rasheed same here!
also, i had to read this like 10 times to get it
When Dark Knight was out, they had little figurines in Cheerios. We’ve got about a dozen Jokers and one Batman.
I like the thought process in including a free gift with normal purchases, but a rubber duckie with a sump pump would be just a wee bit too unsettling for me. I’d probably go with whatever other model there was BECAUSE the B&D came with a rubber duckie. That’s called bad marketing.
@SEA: RIIIIIGHT…
HIT ME UP WITH SOME SUPER NOODLE FROSTED BRAN YO
I don’t see toys in cereal anymore, someone probably sued someone and now we just have plain old cereal- great.
Hmmm, is Biff’s invisible car insurance from “Chameleon”? “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on intangible car insurance.” Little did he know that it was the car insurance that was nonexistant… XD
Two comments:
1. Has anyone noticed that cereal toys have become MUCH less common? When I was a kid (way back in the 80’s. Snort.), virtually every cereal, most notably those that were bad for you, contained some useless trinket or other. Frequently is was a deciding factor as to which sugar-laden diabetes-inducer I would pressure the folks for, convinced that i would surely perish were I NOT to possess a thrice articulated King Arthur & the Knights of Justice action figure.
Recently, the local market had some obscene deal (4 boxes for 5 bucks) on sugary Kellogg’s cereals, and I figured, “what the hell. I’m a grown up now, aren’t I?” and bought a variety stack for the lady and me. Not one of the four boxes (Froot Loops, Pops, Apple Jacks*, and Spider Man**) contained a prize! Granted, there’s a convoluted UPC + some only account that could potentially yield a plastic piece of crap, but, as pointed out above, a large part of the fun was the fact that it came WITHIN the box. As a six year-old I certainly wouldn’t have had the patience to deal with it, and I sure as hell don’t now.
2. And no, I’m NOT contradicting myself here, products (non-cereal) that come with a “bonus” usually make me leery. I mean, is your product not good enough to stand on its own? If it’s directly related (i.e. a collectible orc figurine in a World of Warcraft box for example), fine. That’s cross-marketing and still your own branding.
Just recently though, I saw a men’s razor that came with a cheap plastic carabiner watch. I assumed prior to this than one 34-bladed razor was as good as another, but after seeing this, I can only assume that the one in question was inferior. I mean, to include a totally unrelated, unbranded, irrelevant piece of junk with a razor smacks of desperation in an industry that will always have a market.
* They really DON’T taste like apple. Damn. I’m getting old.
** Shut up.
Long time lurker, first time commentter.
Love this one, because I actually know someone who did this with a car. He was trying to get a little lower of a price on the car and he decided that he would take it for the price offered of they let him have the stuffed Lion that was in the one he test drove.
Just because you’re an adult does not mean you don’t play with legos!
If they aren’t going to put toys in Cocoa Puffs, they should at least put them in Raisin Bran!
All I can say is that me and my friends have a long standing argument about my friend’s Suzuki Sierra..
It’s that small and boxy and light feeling that the joke is it either came out of a cereal packet, or it was a cereal packet, it just has wheels and an engine added.
There was always something oddly satisfying about jamming your hand way down into the cereal box to extract your prize. You’d end up with your hand covered in cereal bits and then your dad would get mad that you spilled all over the floor. Ahh…. Memories.
@ Rachel:
That’s exactly what my parents did when they bought their ’94 Ford Exploder… They signed on it that day because the dealership gave them a giant white bear with it… which they still have. They still have the Exploder too. It has 80,000 miles on it, and the A/C no longer works, the brake lines failed twice, the transmission was replaced once, and it won’t pass inspection now because the floors are rusting out and the exhaust fell off… and it was garage kept until two years ago…
So Super Noodle Bran has changed from giving rockets to giving cars? Tisk tisk, the economy is hurting everyone…
They used to have the toy in the cereal bag with the cereal; now they put it in the box, but outside the bag–if they have a toy at all. (rare; usually the gimmick is some game or contest.) Wasn’t at least part of the fun digging through the cereal, looking for the toy? Someone probably didn’t notice the toy, choked on it, and tried to sue the company.
@Rasheed – if you pre-order games, they come with stuff, sometimes!
my favourites are the “Harvest Moon” games. They come with plushies of farm animals!
Hornswaggler – No, the offer just ended. Either that, or they sold the right to make it or whatever |:D
does the car come with the cereal, or does the cereal come with the car?