Because legal entities are capable of worse crimes than their corporeal counterparts.

Friday, May 4, 2007

"What The Fuck" Fridays: What the fuck is going on with Kellogg's



No seriously, what's new with Kellogg's? I basically only know them for their cornflakes.

According to the geographically accurate map above, Kellogg's is near the top of our fair state. In the future, I will jump across the state, not really giving a fuck about hitting these companies in linear order. I'll get to them all eventually. I swear.

Kellogg Company sold 10.9 billion dollars worth of cereal in 2006 alone. Get money. They made nearly 5 billion in gross profit in the same year. Get money.

You might wonder, "How does one company push so much cereal?" I wondered the same thing. The answer is this: If you live in America, Kellogg Company owns most of the brands you see in grocery stores in cookies, snacks, cereals, crackers, and other assorted foods. They're probably best known for their breakfast brands. Basically, if you go to a store and buy breakfast stuff and it's not the "no frills" brand, you are probably filling up your shopping cart with some Kellogg's. For example: they own Pop Tarts®, Nutri-Grain®, Kashi®, Rice Krispies®, Frosted Flakes®, Fruit Loops®, Keebler®, Cheez-It®, and even Morningstar Farms®, which actually surprises and concerns me. You see, I love Morningstar Farms® frozen foods. For some reason, I thought they were independent. Oh, also, that list is far from complete. Kellogg's is basically runnning shit in the breakfast food industry. One might wonder how they are able to rack up such huge profits and sell people so much stuff under the same umbrella corporation, while people either a) don't notice or b) don't care that they're all buying stuff from the same corporation. I think it's a combination of both. You see, Kellogg's has SUPER strong brands that have been around for a long time. These brands, regardless of who owns them, appear to the public to be independent entities. For instance, no one would think that Tony The Tiger gets kickbacks whenever he eats Eggo Waffles with his frosted flakes, but that's probably how shit goes down, because they're part of the same company. It's just that people don't associate them because the brands look very different from each other.

For an example of just how far Kellogg's has taken their brands, check out their press kit page. They literally have full biographies for some of their more popular mascots. Ernie, the Keebler Elf has some kind of weird shit going on where no one knows his middle name, but the names of some other shady elves, like Fast Eddie, and Buckets, are dropped in the bio. Interesting stuff.

Kellogg Company: the ten billion dollar example of how proper brand management can make your company into a corporate behemoth. Remind me to try to find alternatives to those tasty Morningstar Farms® sausage patties.

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