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Lately I am nostalgic for a time when products could have an element of fun. Here are a few that spring to mind:
Buried Treasures – an ice cream bar that tasted like sherbet. It had a plastic grip with a platform that the ice cream sat on, and as you licked away the ice cream, it revealed some kind of figure. Perhaps kids were meant to break off the “stick” end and use the figures as toys, I don’t remember.
Cracker Jack – this caramel popcorn and peanuts snack has been around for ages, and for past generations was synonymous with the concept of a “free prize inside”. When I was a kid, Cracker Jack came in boxes roughly the size of a paperback, and usually contained an actual small toy, like a novelty ring or top. As time passed, those toys were replaced with stickers or tattoos sealed in a flat protective package. Today, the “prize” is almost always those stickers as far as I can tell.
Cereal – breakfast cereals used to be synonymous with cheap plastic prizes too. I remember getting a plastic, life-sized jack-knife from a box of cereal when I was about 5. My dad used it to saw through a rusty muffler pipe on a car trip. That sort of prize was not unusual back in the day. As the 80s wore on, cereal prizes evolved from general amusements to novelties associated with whatever movies were coming out at the time (like Happy Meal toys are now). As cereals strove to present themselves as healthy, the toys gave way to pedometers and DVDs and coupons. In their heyday, kids would beg for a particular cereal because of the toys promised within; it’s hard to imagine that now.
Bottle caps – in the 70s and 80s it was common to peel back the plastic liner of a bottle cap and find that you had won something, usually another bottle of pop. But I vividly remember the Coca-Cola contest associated with the release of Star Wars. All of the major characters from the film were printed on the liners of Coke bottle caps, and the glue was particularly strong so it was easy to damage them trying to peel them off; but if you collected the right combination, there was a large cash prize. Other combinations led to toys and of course, free Coke.
Why am I thinking about this? I guess I just miss something that used to be fun. They still have “free prizes” on pop bottles and cereal boxes and so on, of course; but these days it involves finding a PIN number, registering at a website, collecting points. Some fun, huh?
I understand the rationale. Plastic toys wind up in landfills. Plastic liners can be forged. PIN numbers and websites make for lower costs and better security. So the challenge, for consumers and creators alike, is: how do we create that sense of fun and anticipation in this modern world?
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