October 1998
s m u g
target audience
by Leslie Harpold

*

Wish Fulfillment

cheer cheer ad

You never want to think about your parents doing it - it upsets the natural balance of the universe as you understand it. In this ad, a small girl is forced to confront the nightmare head on, she catches her father eating cereal for breakfast. Now, in a move to educate his daughter about the facts of life, he reminds her of a moment we didn't see.

"Remember when I told you these were good for my cholesterol?" She does. So we aren't deprived of the whole cholesterol rap, a voice over goes into specifics about low density lipoproteins and we watch her cute but sleepy bonding with Daddy. Just like your life, no?

Apparently when you have kids, you get the whole meal thing on schedule and no longer pull stunts like I do - eating cereal for dinner and spinach for breakfast, all things that would have been unheard of in my childhood home, or any other home I was allowed to enter when I was a child. Cereal for dinner, at least if you're a parent is "wacky". But this is no wacky dad. He loves his baby, and makes sure the other thing that's good for his heart - a hug from his girl, is on the dessert menu. Enter the strings where we get our hearts tugged. He may be an irresponsible diner, but not utterly reckless, watching out for his heart and being the good daddy.

You can't get too angry at this guy, it is a warm, if overly manufactured moment. He's not a mean man, he's not drunk and breaking up the furniture, or eating his Cheerios with his stoner friends while watching nature documentaries after a few bong hits. His just a guy. My gut feeling is that the people who live in his world, other moms and dads who sometimes have to eat late and have darling little moppets about the house they refer to as "punkin'" would find this perfectly acceptable, even appealing. Everyone wants to have these cute little moments of bonding, don't they?

Somewhere though, after a couple viewings, it becomes unsettling. Maybe for me it's the premature education about cholesterol problems in fathers to six year olds, although the modern stance of full disclosure would explain that away. Since my folks were raised in the 50s, I'm not sure I even knew they were vulnerable to any illnesses until I was a teenager and the male parental unit threw his back out. Maybe it's the saccharine manufactured quality of the mise en scene, or the exchanging of nutritional worth - low cholesterol, but where are the vegetables? That set of standards though, is one I apply externally exclusively however, as I wouldn't bat an eyelash at coming home from a long night of work and having a big bowl of Total Raisin Bran. (Can I be the only one who bought the gimmick about a full day's nutrition in every bowl?)

So, the ad works, I imagine on it's intended audience but leaves me a little cold. Not as cold as the new Levi's Silvertab billboards, but cold nonetheless.

leslie@smug.com

*

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