The Kelloggs company announced they will stop advertising on the conservative web site Breitbart. They claim that Breitbart is not in line with their values. This is certainly their prerogative. But it does set an interesting precedent. Should a food company, which apparently wants to sell their product to everyone ignore a portion of the market due to a difference in values? Here’s a heads up to the good folks at Kelloggs, the conservative folks at Breitbart are likely reflecting the values of half of the country. Seems like a suicidal marketing ploy to me.

 

So I thought I would offer some reasons why Kelloggs might not want to take this action.

 

1. You will likely sell half the product if you take a one sided political stand.  Conservatives like to eat and some surely like cereal. Insulting your potential market seems a fairly stupid move.
2. Kelloggs sells their products in such places as Qatar, Saudi Arabia etc and these places obviously have values that differ markedly from those that Kelloggs tries to claim. Hypocrite much?
3. Selling high volumes of sugar to any market is very likely a marked health hazard. Many claim that sugar kills more people a year than tobacco. One estimate claimed 38 million deaths world wide each year are related to sugar consumption and it’s related problems of obesity, heart disease and diabetes. In comparison, tobacco deaths were estimated at 5 million. Kelloggs is selling death.  The box pictured above has been estimated to contain 55% sugar by the EWG (Environmental Working Group) that says there is more sugar in a serving of this cereal then in a Twinkie or cookies.  Damn.
4. The holier than thou Kelloggs company won’t tell you about their own dirty laundry. I will. Their founder John Harvey Kellogg M.D. invented Corn Flakes in 1878. One of his claims was that eating this cereal would prevent boys from masturbating. He suggested that boys who were unfortunate enough to actually be caught masturbating should be circumcised. He suggested that the surgeons not use anesthesia so that the “pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases.” So it was Kelloggs who brought male genital mutilation to the United States as a form of punishment for masturbation.  But don’t let it be said that Kellogg was sexist.  He apparently also urged the genital mutilation of girls.

 

I doubt you need many more reasons to not buy Kelloggs products. Right?

 

Boycott! Eat fewer carbs and gain in happiness!  #DumpKelloggs