Never judge a box by its cover

Today I went into my favorite neighborhood Spanish supermarket (ShopSmart on Broad) to pick up some milk and discount brand cereal. My preferred cereal is Krasdale’s Honey Nut Toasted Oats. I’m a big fan of discount brands, with their no frills and low price approach. In fact, I’m practically the definition of their target market: I don’t care if there’s a certain cartoon bee on my box, but I’ll gladly take a cereal that tastes exactly the same for half the price.

Today I noticed my lowly discount cereal is moving on up in the world; they’ve got new box cover art. The new cover looks more like the “real” cheerios box, yellow with a more professional looking font and picture of a delicious bowl of cereal, and is certainly more attractive than the old black box with its poorly drawn cartoon children. But it’s a cosmetic change only: qualitatively and quantitatively, it’s the same cereal.

Same name. Same number of ounces. Same dietary information. Same ingredients in the exact same order.

Oh, and it costs more.

Krasdale, I’m very, very disappointed in you.