Are the cereal boxes in your local grocery store staring at your kids? Well - Yes.
A new study from Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab and the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity finds that the characters on cereal boxes are being directly marketed to kids. Researchers noticed that instead of the figures on the cereal boxes looking straight head, they tend to stare downward, allowing them to gaze into the eyes of the their intended target - kids.
Researchers studied 65 cereals in 10 different stores in New York and Connecticut and found that trust increased by 16 percent if the characters on a brand of cereal were staring children directly in the eyes.
In the study dubbed Cereal Box Psychology, lab researchers Aner Tal and Brian Wansink placed the cereal shelves at four feet, and then calculated the angle in which 86 different cereal characters gazed at shoppers.
Cornell researchers discovered that characters like Cap'n Crunch, Tony the Tiger, and Luck the Leprechaun stare down at children. Of the 86 different characters evaluated, 57 were marketed to children with a downward gaze at an average angle of 9.67 degrees.
The researchers also found that cereal for adults are positioned at about 48 inches off of the floor, while cereal intended for children are positioned at the same height as kids--about 23 inches off of the floor.
The study experimented with two different versions of a box of Trix - one box had the rabbit character looking downwards and the other had the rabbit looking ahead - and asked 63 college students to observe the two versions. Researchers found brand trust was 16 percent higher and the feeling of connection to the brand increased by 10 percent when the rabbit made eye contact with the participant.
"If you are a cereal company looking to market healthy cereals to kids, use spokes-characters that make eye contact with children to create brand loyalty," Wansink, director of Cornell's Food and Brand Lab said.
