Knock It off, Tony: Cereal Mascots Designed to Make Eye Contact With Kids
Is breakfast even the most important meal of the day?
It’s a universal sensation, and one that new research says advertisers have no qualms using to manipulate kids: locking eyes with a stranger increases trust and connection, even when that stranger is an athletic Tiger or…whatever that thing from the Honeycomb box is.
Eyes in the Aisles, a creepily-named study from Cornell’s Food & Brand Lab and Yale, is bound to do for grocery stores what Scooby Doo animations of portraits with moving eyes did for art, asking, “To what extent do cereal spokes-characters make eye contact with children versus adults, and does their eye contact influence choice?”
86 cereal spokescharacters were evaluated in 10 separate grocery stores. Shelf height of sugary cereal geared towards children as opposed to the shelf height of “adult” cereals was also analyzed. The researchers calculated the average inflection of spokescharacters’ gaze (0.4° vs. −9.6°), and concluded that “cereal characters on child oriented cereals make incidental eye contact at children’s eye level,” and “eye contact with cereal spokes-characters increased feelings of trust and connection to the brand.” In other words, grocery stores are dictatorships and Toucan Sam is their fearless leader. OBEY.
Eyes In the Aisles is also a reminder that little kids aren’t as fully initiated in distrust and fear as adults are. I’m pretty sure if Cap’n Crunch peered into my soul I would blush and run away, not take him home with me. Since children are still receptive to eye contact, the researchers point out mascot eyeline could manipulate them into making healthier choices: “One potential application of this finding would be to use eye contact with spokes-characters to promote healthy choices and healthier food consumption.”
If that’s the case, token healthy-cereal Kashi is really going to have to up their game.
Just the worst. At least give some of those sticks googly eyes or something!
In the meantime, I am going to keep eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch, because I am an adult and Jedi mind tricks have no influence on me. But, I’m going to turn the box around just in case.
(via io9, image via Tara Whitsitt)
- Our definitive ranking of the General Mills “monster cereals”
- Here’s a bowl that separates milk and cereal to avoid sogginess
- “Totes Amazeballs” cereal speaks for itself
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