— What’s on the agenda today?
— Post Sugar Crisp cereal.
— OK. So: it’s for kids. What do kids like?
— Stuffed toys. My daughter has so many she can’t get in her
own bed.
— Aren’t Post pushing the honey content in this stuff?
— Yes. It’s mostly just sugar though. Technically they can’t
call it Honey Crisp.
— Mark my words, one day they’ll change the names of all
these things to “Golden” or “Honey” instead of “Sugar.”
— No they won’t. Kids like sugar better than honey. So let’s
go with a bear. Bears like honey. If the bear keeps wanting to grab the kid’s
cereal, it’ll make folks think it’s full of honey.
— Like Pooh Bear, cute.
— No — let’s make it a giant bear. A bear as big as the kid.
Then it’s an even match. We can call him “Sugar Bear.”
— A girl and her teddy wrestling over the cereal — I like
it.
— Reminds me of sugar daddy. All little girls want a sugar
daddy.
— But if the bear belongs to the girl, she’ll gladly let him
have it. She needs to be afraid of the bear so she won’t give it up.
— Sounds crazy sexual to me. Can we really go with that?
— It’s no different than Red Riding Hood. Or The Three
Bears.
— Good point. Fairy tale characters cut to the chase. So
let’s have a wicked witch too. In the TV commercials they can live in the
forest and the witch can always be hiding her Sugar Crisp from the bear, who
always gets it.
— Like when the little girl grows up?
— Yeah.
— She lives all alone in the forest and keeps getting her
home invaded and her person assaulted and her property stolen by a scary
intruder?
— Yeah.
— Jesus.
— We’ll give the bear a laid-back vibe. Non-threatening. The
witch will never seem upset about it. She wants the bear to break in.
— So you’re talking about a rape fantasy, then?
— Right!
— Jesus.
— How about we just go with the girl in her pajamas, sitting
on the counter with her teddy bear looking on as she grabs handfuls of the
cereal from the box? We’ll make it look like she’s misbehaving.
— That’s better.
— Make her a blonde. Goldilocks. But cut her bangs real
short so she looks modern.
— Done. Next?
Ad for Post Sugar Crisp, 1959
