Less is More: General Mills’ Cereal Port
Last week, packaging blog TheDieline shared the story of General Mills reissuing retro (classic!) box designs of children's cereal. It's a stark reminder of the state of advertising and a mirror of the things our culture seems to value.
For the moment, I'm not going to deconstruct their visual rhetoric. Just look at the difference between the retro and the contemporary:
I haven't done a Less is Better in a while, but when I saw this I had to say something. Look at all the badges and banners on the box, check out that hyperkinetic rabbit and his meteorites of sugar flying at your face. It's practically screaming at you. I hadn't realized how desensitized I'd become-- that there could be any alternative but an aisle full of this corn-based cacophony.
TheDieline speculates that the retro rollout is an attempt to connect to nostalgia, perhaps to get adults to consider buying more cereal (ostensibly because of the tough economy). Instead of belt-tightening, wouldn't it be nice if it represented something else? Not asking people to buy something, but asking them to consider their values.
The Trix rabbit on the old box doesn't need to sell you anything. In fact, he's not even looking at you. He's just enjoying the cereal. The craziest thing about him is that he's got rollerskates on. He goes outside to play.
Silly rabbit.
| Tagged with: | Austerity, Branding, Food, Less is Better, Nostalgia, Simplicity, Trix |