More Than 40% Of All Lucky Charms Cereal Eaten By Adults

Back in January, venerable sugary-cereal brand Lucky Charms launched a new ad campaign aimed at a novel demographic: adults. Adults? Don’t grown-ups eat cereals filled with wheat bran and nuts and dried fruit? Well… no.

Americans’ cereal choices are complicated, but nostalgia is a big part of it. Even before the new adult-centered campaigns, General Mills estimated that 40% of the marshmallow-laden breakfast food was eaten by adults. Six months later, they say that sales are up thanks to the campaign, and form a big part of a general sales increase for General Mills.

Here’s one of those new ads, where a woman encounters a presumably soggy bowl of cereal left out on her counter. Is it a half-eaten bowl left behind by a burglar in her home? Is it a trap that a mysterious leprechaun left out? The ad doesn’t explain, and the woman naively chows down anyway.

A four-year-old might eat random foods they find lying around, but an adult? For shame, lady. For magically delicious shame.

Meanwhile, for no particular reason, here is an ’80s Lucky Charms commercial that old fogeys like the Consumerist staff would remember from our misspent, sugared-up, cartoon-watching childhoods.

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