Cartoon Cereal Ads

Here is a new installment of Facepalm Pilot, my McSweeney’s column about technology and stupidity, with an interactive data visualization which attempts to analyze the nutritional characteristics of the various cartoon characters used to advertise sugary breakfast cereals to kids.

When frazzled parents finally concede defeat on the daily battlefield that is breakfast, their kids are often delighted, since they are unable to steel themselves against expert marketing campaigns for which they are the coveted target demographic. Television aimed at children is funded primarily with ads in which brightly colored cardboard boxes are hawked by brightly colored cartoon characters during commercial breaks between shows featuring slightly different brightly colored cartoon characters. But there may still be a partial compromise on the horizon: by assessing the nutritional profiles of the mascots being used to sell the cereals, perhaps we can begin to understand underlying patterns by which we can help keep children healthy while also indulging their mascot preferences.

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