If you’ve been grocery shopping or visited a toy store recently, you’ve no doubt been inundated with pop culture characters emblazoned on products throughout the store. It seems like there is more product placement than we’ve seen since the 80’s, and I love every last bit of it! The Avengers are on cereal and cracker boxes, soda cans, Dorito bags and more, but they’re not alone. Star Wars characters are hitting the shelves too, but not the new Star Wars Rebels, it’s Darth Vader, Yoda, and our two favorite droids, C3PO and R2-D2 — my Cheerios even came with a Drew Struzan poster! Kraft Macaroni and Cheese boxes have some great headshots of characters that make an impressive display wall, and there are microwaveable cups displaying not only Star Wars characters, but Spongebob, How to Train Your Dragon, and the Ninja Turtles too.
Say what you will about product placement on food items, but it certainly works. My kids have been clamoring for items they know they don’t like, just because they see one of their favorite characters staring at them from the store shelves. Heck, I bought a box of the Avengers cereal, knowing full well, the bag of cereal would never be opened, but I wanted that box!
Along with the established licenses, a big contender has made a long-awaited return — Jurassic World toys are now appearing in the toy aisles. There’s just something exciting about a whole new toy line based on a movie. I hope the movie lives up to the merchandise!
Matchbox got the license for the Jurassic World vehicles, which will hopefully be good for them. Being a bit of a Hot Wheels snob, I don’t know when the last time I bought a Matchbox car was, but I brought a few of these home with me, and I’ll probably pick up a few more over time.
Personally, I love seeing all these different licensed characters throughout the store. It reminds me of what it was like to be a kid in the 80’s and seeing cereals for GI Joe and Mr. T, and begging to get a special box solely for the trinket buried inside.
I’m really digging those Matchbox vehicles. Might have to pick up a couple and some dinosaurs for some toy photography.
Not like I need another excuse to buy the kids LEGO sets, but the new Jurassic World sets look great! I find it interesting that most of the JW toys have been cutesified so that they will appeal to the younger kids, making me wonder if the movie is going to be as violent as the original.
Warms my heart to see full shelves! Now if only Hasbro can emulate this and stock their Star Wars Black Series to the brim…LOL.
No kidding. I’ve almost given up sifting through all the Obi Wans that are peg warming around here in the hopes of finding a good figure.
I’m with you on this! The other day I opened up some Honey Nut Cheerios and got an ESB poster =) definitely looking forward to this summer movie season!
PS I miss the league
Matchbox and Hot Wheels are both great, just at different things — Hot Wheels tends to have outlandish fantasy cars while Matchbox is a little more real world (though of course both sides have exceptions). Mattel owns both these days so it kind of makes the point moot though 🙂