Why is most cereal inside a plastic bag inside a cardboard box, when it doesn’t seemingly need the cardboard box?
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Hey kid! Which looks more like something you’d buy:
* This bag of dry crunchy bits that looks like the same stuff the cat eats, and is sitting in a pile of similar bags in a wire bin, orrrr….
* This big box that has a cartoon tiger on it, and smiling kids and a GIGANTIC bowl of cereal with HUGE marshmallows on it, has a crossword puzzle and a maze on the back, and when you shake it, you know there’s a special prize inside, because the box tells you so?
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* Advertising / shelf presence. Bags don’t stand upright, so you have less attract value for the kids. A physical box with a flat surface that invites drawing on once you get it home is not just cereal, it’s a new toy! Also, the closeup of the cereal bowl makes the contents seem bigger than they actually are. Which leads to…
* Truth in advertising obfuscation. Sure, that box is big, but the top third is nothing but air. The box might say ‘contents may have settled during shipping’, but since you can’t see how much cereal you’re actually getting in the box, you aren’t going to think twice about paying for the giant box of cereal versus looking at the smaller bag and thinking, ‘that’s a bit steep.’ We think ‘bigger container’ = ‘more contents’, but check out the cereal boxes next time and you’ll see some of them are skinnier than others when you turn them sideways. (Shampoo bottles are the biggest offender here, as well as computer games that had a giant box when there was only a CD-ROM inside….)
* The Cracker Jacks Effect – If you don’t know what the toy is, you’ll buy it because your fantasy is better than the reality. If you can see the toy through the bag and see that it’s a cheap plastic thing or a packet of stickers… you might change your mind. (Edited to add that apparently toys in cereal is no longer a thing in some places in the world. Can you tell I don’t have kids?)
I like the box! Keeps storage nice and neat. The real question is why can’t the bags have a freakin zip lock??
It’s probably just a cultural thing and depends on where you are. For example, all cereal here in Japan is packed in plastic bags.
I would argue that a proper cardboard box would eliminate the need for any plastic and thus be much better for the environment.
I would never have gotten that record of the Archie’s hit single Sugar Sugar if it wouldn’t have been for the box.
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