Okay. I’ll admit it. It’s hard for me to dig into a bowl of cereal that has a fly floating in it.
But then I think: Look, it’s only a marshmallow fly, Jim. A bright yellow one, at that. So this food isn’t really filthy. It’s festive.
(Yeah, right.)
I’m sorry, folks. I genuinely didn’t intend to start today’s review on such a downbeat note. But you have to understand: I’m over 40. 44 to be exact. So my days of snarfing down “Pink Hearts, Yellow Moons and Green Clovers” are long since behind me. These days, if and when I actually sit down to eat a bowl of cereal, you can bet that the word “Bran” figures somewhere in the title of that product.
(I know. I know. TMI. Too much information … Anyway …)
So — that said — what am I doing, sitting down to eat a bowl of “Chocolate Mud & Bugs?” Let’s call it research. (Or — to put a more truthful spin about this whole sorry episode — that my 9-year-old daughter is in town visiting me right now. And — while we were out shopping for Alice Chow the other night — she expressed an interest in trying out this new Kellogg / Disney product. And I thought — as I slung the box into our cart — “Well, maybe I can get a story out of this.”)
Then again … Maybe not …
What’s the problem here? Well — you see — I’m one of those people who believes that you can’t really review a product until you’ve actually tried it. And given that I’m just not relishing the idea of digging into a bowl full of bugs and … hey … what’s happening to the milk?
At this point, Alice (who’s 9 going on 35) heaves a particularly theatrical sign. After nearly two weeks of being trapped out in the woods of New Hampshire, my darling daughter has nearly had enough of her dopey Daddy.
“Daaaa-ad,” she says (stretching the word out to two syllables). “That’s what the cereal is supposed to do. It turns the milk in the bowl into chocolate milk. See?”
With that, Alice thrusts the cereal box in my face. Putting on my reading glasses (See? I told you I was old!), I peer at the side of the box and read:
“Dig in Kids!
Pour cold milk over a bowl of Kellogg’s & Disney Chocolate Mud & Bugs cereal and stir up a cool mud hole that tastes a lot like chocolate milk! Then, have fun spoonin’ up colorful marshmallow bugs floatin’ around crunchy, rock-shaped cereal chunks.
Enjoy these rare delicacies every morning – in a nutritious, whole grain cereal packed with 11 vitamins and minerals.”
So let me get this straight. Not only am I supposed to be eating bugs, but I’m also supposed to be turning my cereal bowl into a mud hole? Jeese, I’m queasy just thinking about it.
But then I look at Timon and Pumbaa’s smiling faces on the “Chocolate Mud & Bugs” cereal box and I think: “I love these guys. Why, I’m becoming more like Pumbaa with each passing day. (I know, I know. Again with the TMI. Which is why we’re quickly moving on now…) Look at that happy meerkat and warthog frolicking on the front of that package. My favorite characters from ‘The Lion King’ wouldn’t do anything to hurt me … Would they?”
The Walt Disney Company and the Kellogg’s Co. are clearly hoping that some of you think fondly of Timon and Pumbaa too. That’s why — back in February of this year, for the national launch of this cereal — the two corporations put together a massive advertising campaign. Which included TV commercials, print ads as well as in-store promotion. All with the hope that seeing these two cartoon stars and the Disney name on a cereal box would be enough to compel consumers to try “Chocolate Mud & Bugs.”
But slapping the Disney logo as well as an animation superstar on the front of a box doesn’t guarantee success. At least when it comes to the cereal aisle. I mean, look what happened to “Buzz Blasts.” The Kellogg’s / Disney product that preceded “Chocolate Mud & Bugs.” Initial sales on that cereal — which (of course) was themed around Buzz Lightyear, one of the stars of the “Toy Story” movies — were great. But then they fell off sharply.
What happened there? Well, to hear retailers tell the tale, Disney and Kellogg’s first mistake was that they set the price point of their product ‘way too high. How high are we talking here? Well, drop by your local supermarket and stroll down the cereal aisle. There, you’ll find dozens of well-known brands selling for $1.99 a box. Now take a look at what the three Disney-themed cereals (I.E. “Mickey’s Magix,” “Hunny Bs” and “Chocolate Mud & Bugs”) are going for: $3.19 a box.
Why did the Kellogg’s Co. put such an over-sized price tag on its Disney-themed cereal line? Well, the Battle Creek, MI. based breakfast food giant was clearly hoping that the Disney name alone would be enough to compel consumers to overlook that $1.20 price difference. But that clearly hasn’t been the case.
I mean, after the initial launch of this product line early last year (which — admittedly — went rather well), sales of these Disney character-based cereals suddenly began to slump. And — by August of last year — sales were off by 20%. A clear sign that consumers had sampled the product line and — having found the cereal to be too expensive and/or not to their liking — they had moved on.
Following that startling fall-off in sales last Fall, both Disney and Kellogg’s decided it was time to make some changes. And — given that “Buzz Blasts” was the slowest seller of the Disney-themed trio — well, that’s why production of the Buzz Lightyear themed cereal was quietly shut down late last year.
But what could Disney and Kellogg’s bring to the marketplace to replace “Buzz Blasts” (and — more important — what product would give its entire Disney character-themed a much needed boost)? Well — given that Kellogg’s has long lagged behind its competition when it came to chocolate-flavored breakfast food — it was decided that, whatever product the company replaced “Buzz Blasts” with, it had better be chocolate flavored.
And then — when you factor in all the promotional effort that the Walt Disney Company was going to put into the upcoming DVD release of “The Lion King” (as well as next year’s Buena Vista Home Entertainment premiere, “The Lion King 1 1/2”) — it just made synergistic sense to theme this new product around characters from “The Lion King.” And — given that kids love gross stuff like mud and bugs — well … Timon and Pumbaa quickly emerged as the front runners. The perfect characters to build this new product line around.
Which brings us back to this bowl of rapidly-growing-soggy cereal that’s currently sitting in front of me. “Chocolate Mud & Bugs.” The culmination of hundreds of hours of research and development by the Walt Dsieny Company and the Kellogg’s Co.
So what does this cereal actually taste like? Well, how many of you out there are “Calvin & Hobbes” fans? Do you remember Calvin’s favorite cereal in that comic strip? “Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs”? Well, Kellogg’s / Disney’s newest product — “Chocolate Mud & Bugs” — tastes (at least to me) a lot like I think “Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs” would have tasted like.
As in: this is an intensely sweet cereal. Great for hardcore sugar fans (like my daughter, Alice). But it will probably put the rest of the public into a diabetic coma.
I mean, it’s clear that this stuff is a hit with the under-10 crowd. Alice quickly finished one bowl of “Chocolate Mud & Bugs,” then quickly began campaigning for another. Me? It was all I could do to finish the first bowl. Eating this stuff made the fillings in my teeth ache.
Even after breakfast was long over, Alice was still asking for more “Chocolate Mud & Bugs.” For her afternoon snack, my daughter wanted to know if she could have a handful of the cereal (dry) to munch on. That’s when I began to read the side of the box. Just to make sure that “Crack” wasn’t one of the product’s active ingredients.
So — just to review here — if you’re under 10, I’m guessing that you’ll probably love Disney and Kellogg’s new cereal, “Chocolate Mud & Bugs.” If you’re over 10 … well, maybe you should check with your dentist before you sit down to have a bowl. I’m pretty sure that just opening the flaps on the box is enough to give cavities.
My sincere apologies to those of you I may have inadvertently nauseated with the opening lines of this story. (But — what the hey — nausea seems to be the theme running through all the stories at JimHillMedia.com today. I mean, look at the title of Seth Kubersky’s story “To Hurl or Not to Hurl.” Anyway …) But I really did have trouble digging into a bowl full of cereal that had faux flies floating in it. All I could hear — in the back of my mind — was Henny Youngman’s voice. As the late comic launched into one of his trademark routines:
“Waiter! What’s this fly doing in my soup/cereal?”
“It looks like the backstroke.”
(Ba Dump Bump)
But you want to know the really ironic part? What’s one of my favorite desserts? Shoo Fly Pie.
Clearly, this is something that I’m going to need to work out in therapy. But — for now — I’ll settle for hearing what JHM readers may have thought of Disney / Kellogg’s “Chocolate Mud & Bugs.”