Before Frosted Flakes had Netflix, it had Groucho Marx
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Fans of Netflix originals are accustomed to the odd product placementpaid or otherwise. “Stranger Things” struck a profound nostalgia chord by making Eggo frozen waffles a prominent plot point in the show. More recently, last month’s “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” choose-your-own-adventure interactive thriller kicked off by asking viewers to decide which cereal the main character should eat at the start of the special: Kellogg’s Frosties, as Frosted Flakes are called in the U.K., or Quaker’s Sugar Puffs.
Well, the results are in: In his fourth-quarter earnings call last week, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings waved a box of Frosties on-screen, revealing that 73 percent of the viewers chose sugary flakes over their puffy cousins. “That’s a level of data transparency we’ve not seen with our content yet,” joked Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos on the call. Hilarious.
Of course, Frosted Flakes has a relationship with couch potatoes that dates back to the advent of television. This 1955 print ad, which ran in Life Magazine (during Princess Margaret’s news-making trip to Trinidad), has an early rendering of Tony the Tiger snatching the mic from a dubious Groucho Marx, host of NBC’s “You Bet Your Life.” “No wonder Groucho’s speechless,” the copy gushes. “You bet your life they’re Gr-r-reat!”
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