"Ever thought of Coco Pops after school?" screams the advert, as we go riding on a slightly hallucinogenic coco-poppy wave. "Ever thought of taking responsibility for your childrens' diet and upbringing?" tweets disgruntled David J. Carr, DJC1805, in response. (http://tinyurl.com/yfbekgh)
And he has a point really, doesn't he? In this day and age when we can rarely open a newspaper without being bombarded with the latest hideous stats about how Britons are all mutating into great, lumbering, humanised tubs of lard, I thought we were meant to be encouraging rabbit food to the masses.
However, Coco Pops' latest ad seems to suggest creating a fourth meal time, and seems to imply that Coco Pops are the quick, fun and healthy (alas, those three words never honestly work together) way to fill a hole in your hunger.
At least 'til Mum wacks on the turkey twizzlers, one assumes.
Predictably, the Good People of Britain have had concerns about the ad. With all the recent furore over junk-food ads, it seems incongruous that a sugary cereal, aimed at kids, had slipped through the strict regulations net.
Kellogg's argued its case originally in 2008, saying that 90% of kids already have an afternoon snack, and thus they aren't creating a 'mealtime' that doesn't already exist. Furthermore, they maintain that Coco Pops with milk is a low fat and low saturated fat food, providing all sorts of RDAs of vitamins like iron and calcium, making it a suitable alternative to snacking on crisps, biscuits or chocolate.
Surely that's like branding Amy Winehouse as a tee-totaller (as long as we're comparing her to George Best).
So basically, it might seem wrong to shove Coco Pops down your kids throats, but if the alternative is a yard of Dairy Milk, then at least you're making some headway into good parenting.
If you believe the press, we'll probably all end up dying of asphyxiation from our own multiple chins anyway, so heck, why not live it up - reach for the Coco Pops.
At least we'll have a nice, plump finger to wag at the ASA.
ASA Adjudication of Kellogg's http://www.asa.org.uk/Complaints-and-ASA-action/Adjudications/2008/4/Kellogg-Company-of-GB-Ltd/TF_ADJ_44312.aspx
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