A New Twist on Old Marketing

One of the oldest grocery item marketing concepts is the "New and Improved" product. Everything from soap to lipstick to microwave popcorn has been new and improved at one time.
While this article from the Motley Fool explains that New and Improved doesn't always mean that much, as I sat down to eat my morning cereal I found a new twist on an old marketing concept.

My wife, being the great mother she is bought my kids the new Limited Edition Spider Man 3 cereal. This is a new product, isn't it? I mean the movie just came out this summer, so how could you possibly have a new and improved version when the character on the box is new? A great question, I'm glad you asked it.

Well as I poured my first of 2 bowls, I was instantly taken back to being about 10 years old at my grandma's house, where she always spoiled me by buying me that sugar cereal my parents would never let me have. I loved eating Smurf-Berry Crunch. Mmmmm, I loved it. I would eat all of the red ones first and leave the blue ones last. Almost like I was Gargamel, I would chase the little blue ones around my cereal bowl and eat them like Gargamel always wanted to eat Smurfs. (But not Smurfette, she was hot)

So take notice of the two cereals. They look strikingly similar I think. Granted Smurf-Berry Crunch was a Post cereal and Spiderman 3 is General Mills, but there couldn't have been much creativity in copying one cereal to another and slapping a cool new box on it.

Honestly, I don't care if it was a blatant copyright infringement as a result of industrial espionage, I'm just glad to have my Smurf-Berry Crunch back in my cereal bowl.