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Cereal sites

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 14, 2009

Over a breakfast of Post Honey Bunches of Oats I was noticing on the box that they were promoting the cereal's Web site, onespoonful.com. Somehow, since I was enjoying the cereal, I wanted to immediately visit the site. Well, I might have had the immediate desire but I had to finish my cereal first.

But I was intrigued with the mere idea of a cereal Web site. Remember in the olden days, when you'd eat cereal and the only other interaction you would have with the product was stuff printed on the box or stuffed inside? Sometimes you would find a puzzle or interesting facts about the cereal.

One pre-Internet cereal box had kind of a newspaper page mockup filled with timeless stories, custom made for the cereal eater. Sometimes there would be a toy in the box or a coupon you could cut out, send it in with a little money and in return get something of little or no value in the mail.

It seems that cereals can't make it without some sort of extraneous flash. Kids' cereals need a cartoon character; adult cereals need something that implies immortality - or at least regularity - for the eater.

I'm surprised there isn't a cereal called "Immortality Flakes." The cereal's marketing could boast, "Just one bowl a day and you could live forever." If Lucky Charms can be "magically delicious," then why, by gosh, couldn't another one guarantee life everlasting?

Back to the cereal Web site. I did eventually get to visit and under the "News and Events" tab there was an article on the "One Spoonful Tour." Atlanta was the closest the tour came to the Suncoast. It was there last spring. They showed a picture of the Honey Bunches of Oats pickup truck pulling a large U-Haul-type trailer also decorated with the Honey Bunches logo. I bet the place was hopping.

I would eat cereal even if there were no Web site or nationwide cereal tour. I take comfort, though, in the knowledge that the company is enthusiastically promoting its product, which, amazingly, comes in seven varieties.

If you are reading this article over your morning bowl of cereal let me not keep you. Remember, breakfast is the most important meal of the day so that makes cereal eating a real key part of your day.

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