Products that have lost appeal in their advertising

Sort of a commercials then and now thing. What things advertised on TV got your interest years ago, but not anymore?

First, let's take a look at the fast food chains. When I was a kid, I loved the McDonald's commercials because you had Ronald who seemed to make magic happen, and he had his friends, Grimm, the Hamburglar, the chicken nuggets, and they had all the toys in the happy meals and they showed kids having fun around these characters, and the Burger King ads were good, and Dairy Queen, etc., they focused on every kid's dream meal: a cheeseburger, a soda and fries. That was good marketing strategy back then, today? If I was a kid today, I would have NO interest to eat at McDonald's or anywhere...now all of a sudden it's 'healthy choice' with 2% milk, salads and apple slices, what the hell? No Ronald, no magic, and the average customer seems to be a 30 year old working stiff who will be buried in his office shirt and tie.

Kool-Aid, EVERYBODY and his brother remembers Big Red, and when he had hundreds of kids swarming him because he was so cool, and he had the great flavors of Kool-Aid, and in the 90s he made another big splash with those koosh ball things we all wanted...I DON'T CARE if he's 'sweet', sweet not as in great sugary taste but sweet as in Good Samaritan vs. selfish self-centered walking soda bottle. No, no, no, what sold me on it was everybody jamming to 'Get Kool-Aid! Oh yeah! Oh yeah!'

Then the damn cereal commercials. Cereal commercials used to be all about the kids, who loved the great sugary or cinnamony taste and the colorful marshmallows and see the new shapes or see the new color of Froot Loops (I remember when purple was a new addition and a very big deal), and they'd get to hang out with the cool cartoon cereal mascots and characters, Sonny who was CUCKOO for Cocoa Puffs, the silly Trix rabbit, Cap'n Crunch, Lucky, that guy with the glasses and white coat who made Cinnamon Toast Crunch, they got to hang out with the animated Alpahbits letters, etc.

Today, who's eating cereal? Again, the chained to a desk working stiffs that we all for the last two or three generations swore we would never be like. They're not even having breakfast in their own home, unless they're doing it in front of a webcam posting on a live blog about how obsessed they are with the cereal. Most of the time they are at the office, in the break room enjoying a nice cold quick breakfast before rushing back to faxes and xeroxes and answering phones. And WHAT is the big thing about cereal now? FIBER! Not the great taste, not the prize, not even the vitamins and minerals that are in it, but FIBER, you'd think they just discovered the wheel it's such a big deal in these ads. And if I hear one more time 'You must really care about him, you gave him fiber' 'you care about my fiber? I care about your fiber too, I've cared about your fiber for a while now', I am going to scream and/or puke.


And candy bars! Everybody loves candy bars, and they used to make that quite obvious, have EVERYBODY, kids, construction workers, school teachers, the marching band all going 'gimme a break, gimme a break, break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar' instead of everybody in the office munching and moaning in tune with one another. And who could forget 'this is how so and so eats a Reese's peanut butter cup' 'this is how so and so eats a Reese's peanut butter cup?' 'There is no wrong way to eat a Reese's peanut butter cup'. And I don't really remember advertising for Hershey bars unless they had those 'how you make smores commercials', but now we've got guys who look liked drowned rats saying 'oh yeah if you want to get with a woman, just pull out a Hershey bar she's like *high voice* 'ooooooooooh chocolate! I love chocolate!' Why not just come out and say she's on her period while you're at it? Loser.

Anybody else get it and have something to add?