The Power of Packaging:
Cartoon characters are cleverly used to lure your kids

From breakfast cereals and fruit snacks to yogurt and cookies, smiling mascots and beloved TV characters line supermarket shelves. These familiar faces are often used to market foods high in sugar, salt, saturated fat, and calories. Studies show that trusted characters drive sales: children are more likely to choose products with characters on the packaging—and even report that they taste better—compared to identical products without them.

Credit: Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada

When given the choice, kids don’t pick nutrients—they pick fun. This video gives a glimpse into how branding shapes taste before the first bite. Although this is satire, it emphasizes an important point about how marketing shapes what sounds “yummy” to children.

Licensed Cartoon Characters

A popular tactic in marketing food to children is to plaster licensed cartoon characters––often from familiar movies, TV shows, and video games––on highly processed, packaged foods. Relying on star power and recognizability, these characters drive up children’s requests for their associated foods.

Betty Crocker "Fruit Snacks"

(YouTube)

Not only are the boxes of these fruit snacks plastered with cartoon characters—often licensed favorites—but the snacks themselves are shaped to match, reinforcing their appeal to kids at every level.

NEMO Fruit Snacks commercial

(YouTube)

Brand-Created Spokescharacters

Many food companies create their own mascots: original characters designed to build familiarity and trust, making children more likely to recognize, request, and prefer those brands.

Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger: Marketing Breakfast to Kids for Decades

(YouTube)

First appearing in 1952, Tony the Tiger has been used to sell countless boxes of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes cereal. Watch as he delivers his famous line: “They’re Gr-r-reat!” (but with over 40% of the cereal’s calories coming from sugar, are they really?).