Tagged: marketing
Why that cereal mascot is eyeing you
By Jacob Carter, Staff Writer
@jacobca1995
Yes, those cereal mascots are looking at you./ PHOTO VIA Flickr user Mroach
A new study conducted by Cornell University proves that the placement and presentation of cereal intended for youth in grocery stores can affect product sales. According to the researchers, whether or not a child is enticed by a particular cereal is dependent on the orientation of the brand’s mascot.
Walking into a store, it’s easy to see that children’s cereal is placed on lower shelves than the adult’s. This makes sense, as the companies attempt to appeal to a younger, shorter demographic.
But the most interesting aspect of the study places focus on the angle of a mascot’s eyes on a kid’s cereal box.
The study explains that 57 of the 86 different mascots observed possessed a downward gaze of 9.67 degrees. The effect of this particular angle leads to the characters making direct eye contact with passing children.
Using this information, the researchers asked 63 people which of two boxes of cereal they would buy, one with the mascot staring straight ahead and the other with it looking down with the trademark angle. They discovered that the trust in a particular cereal is 16 percent higher if the mascot is looking down and making eye contact.
What to do with this discovery is a bit of a mystery. The study concludes by stating that if companies want to improve sales for healthy kid’s cereals, then those companies should make sure that the characters on those cereal boxes are engaging in a staring contest with potential buyers.
This isn’t out of the question, but the results of the experiment appear too slight to be taken seriously. After all, only 63 people were surveyed, and the results indicate that there was only a 16 percent increase in buyer trust. It looks like the correlation in this study is fleeting at best.
Besides, children are most heavily attracted to the sweetest of cereals. Therefore, even if kids are able to make eye contact with the jaunty sun-mascot on the Raisin Bran box, I am still inclined to think that they will lead themselves to more sugary pastures.
Indeed, the only success I can find in this study is that next time I walk down the breakfast aisle in CVS, I won’t be able to shake the feeling that I’m being watched.
Miley Can’t and Shouldn’t Stop
By Katrina Uy
@katreenz
Love it or hate it, you have to recognize that everyone’s talking about it./PHOTO VIA Wikimedia Commons
Last weekend during her opening monologue on “Saturday Night Live”, she stated, “There are a few subjects I’m not going to get into tonight: I’m not going to do Hannah Montana, but I can give you an update. She was murdered.”
Well, then. That escalated quickly. How’s that for a break from the squeaky-clean image that was once beloved to pre-teen girls everywhere?
From her scandalous performance at the MTV Video Music Awards at the end of August, to her fourth studio album Bangerz, which was released just last week, 20-year-old pop star Miley Cyrus has been riding wave upon wave of controversy and success these past few months.
Miley’s career has been riddled with scandal ever since her Hannah Montana days on the Disney Channel. The controversies came in small doses – first it was leaked pictures of her almost kissing another girl at age 15, and then it was posing under a sheet without a bra for a Vanity Fair photoshoot by Annie Leibovitz later that same year.
Don’t worry, they said, she’s just acting like any other kid her age.
And maybe she was just being a normal kid, at least back then. But now, Miley knows what it takes to get noticed by the media and stay in the limelight. Be scantily clad in a music video or live performance? Check. Have a super hot on-again, off-again Australian boyfriend? Check. Oh, they called off their engagement last month? Even better – that just means more publicity to fuel the fires of her latest album, not to mention Liam Hemsworth is officially on the market again, ladies!
The scandals keep escalating, but in my opinion, Miley is the farthest from a train wreck by any means. She’s in total control of her career and unapologetically so. In an E! Online article, her most recent music video, “Wrecking Ball,” was the “fastest to reach 100 million views on Vevo.” Love her or hate her, she’s all anyone can talk about.
She’s got the looks, and she’s definitely got the talent. If you were to shield your eyes during any of her live performances and just listen to her sing, you wouldn’t be able to deny that she’s just as incredible live as she is in the studio. It’s a shame that she isn’t taking more advantage of her status as an A-list celeb by presenting herself as a role model for her fans but hey, priorities, am I right? Goodie-goodies don’t make headlines, Miley Cyrus 2.0 does.
And so I end on a conflicted note. On behalf of everyone with a sense of decency (think of the children!) I am begging you to please stop, Miley. But we all know that you can’t be tamed and probably won’t, and for the sake of your career you probably shouldn’t stop, either.
After all, there’s no such thing as bad press.
The Daily Free Now 