Honey Nut Cheerios Diner Ad

Okay, here we have a scene in a diner-style restaurant, and there is a group of people in business attire seated together at a small table. So then the waitress comes over and asks: “Who ordered the stuff for low cholesterol, and who had the yummy stuff?” (I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it.) So then she puts a bunch of bowls of cereal down, and they’re all the same: Honey Nut Cheerios (allegedly: they could be Joe’s O’s, for all I knows)! So then the waitress says: “Oh, did I get that wrong?” And then all the people at the table start trading around their bowls of the same cereal. And this all goes to show you: diners will get your order wrong every time! You should never go to diners, they’re always… What? That isn’t the message? Oh, sorry: I mean that it just goes to show you that Honey Nut Cheerios is good for lowering cholesterol and it tastes good! Ya got that?

(Actually, I like diners! I was kidding before: Please go eat at diners!)

So when I first saw this commercial (just this past minute), I thought: okay, that’s a way to say it; if anyone ever ordered cereal at a restaurant: which they don’t. But how else are they going to say it that’s new now anyway? It tells you what they want you to know (or what they want you to think, anyway), and it kinda makes sense, so good job, I guess. And actually, the fact that everyone will probably say to each other that nobody orders cereal at a restaurant will just make everyone talk and think about the ad and the product all that much more. So maybe it’s even better: who knows. (I haven’t bought a cereal based upon anything other than word-of-mouth for years. But the world wouldn’t be the same without cereal ads, so please keep making them: especially the ones for kids!)

Oh, but then the spot takes a tragic turn, as the Honey Nut Cheerios bumblebee mascot goes flying into the diner to greet the patrons who ordered his cereal, and someone squishes him with a rolled-up newspaper! Oh well, maybe they did that just as a setup for the introduction of a new mascot: Nutty the Nut! After all, it’s “Honey Nut Cheerios”, right? How come the bee character gets to hog all the credit? That’s anti-nut propaganda! And if they had Nutty the Nut as their mascot, he could say he’s “Nuts about Honey Nut Cheerios, honey!” (Or is that sexist?) Hey, being insane about cereal has been a wonderful strategy for Cocoa Puffs and Trix ads! It’s worked so well for a kids’ cereal, so why not an adult one? After all, adults are just grown-up children, right? So it’s perfect!

Besides, by having a bee mascot, aren’t Cheerios opening themselves up for an attack ad bashing the bumblebee mascot as dangerous? Some other cereal company could say that the Cheerios bee mascot is secretly a deadly killer bee, and he’s just pretending to be friendly so that you’ll let him into your home so he can sting you to death! Some people are allergic to bee stings too, so it's a real threat! I’m surprised nobody has done that ad yet! Maybe it’s not likely to be done for real, but I can dream, can’t I?

Sorry people: yet again I cannot find this ad online! You’d think ads would be online too, but many still aren’t. Could it be the negative YouTube comments? Or perhaps me? (I doubt it’s me: I don’t have millions of readers. But I’d love to wield such power, so I could abuse it! Ha ha ha!!!)

No, wait: someone has put it up now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep5gT-j1bDY