*cough* *rip-off* *cough*

[mbarrick]

Remember when the toys that came in cereal boxes were actually half-decent? Remember how cheap-ass they got before they pretty much disappeared entirely? How cheap would something have to be to supplant even those crappy, soft-plastic, badly-moulded, made-by-slave-labour-in-China toys? Yup, pretty damn cheap.

So what do they put in cereal boxes now? DVD's. I just bought a box of Frosted Mini-Wheats which included one of four movies. And not utter shite either. "The Mask" and "Spy Kids" were among the four. I spent more renting "Spy Kids" two years ago than I just paid for this box of cereal. Think about it the next time you're looking at a $42.95 DVD: it's more profitable for Kellogg's to give away DVD's than misshappen, unpainted, bright orange, mutant, squashed, "I think this is supposed to be a dinosaur of some sort" mystery toys.

And DVD's cost more to make than CD's...

Comments

[uberbabe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I bought a box of fruit loops the other day to get the kids alice in wonderland (the live action version with whoopi goldberg (http://www.lakecountrydvds.com/shop-item_id-B00000ICZA-search_type-AsinSearch-locale-us.html) notice the price in the link?)

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and those are American dollars. $16.18 at Amazon.ca for a cereal box prize. Just imagine how not guilty I'm going to feel the next time I watch a downloaded movie.

[uberbabe.livejournal.com]

I hadn't even thought about that. I'm just wondering who's benefitting from this? The cereal makers who've bought rights to distribute movies to sell boxes of cereal or movie makers who sold off extra DVD stock to cereal manufacturers to rid themselves of a bunch of table coasters.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Except it isn't old stock. If it were the discs wouldn't have "Kellogg's" printed on them. These discs were produced specifically for this promotion and if it cost any more to toss these things in the box than purple plastic mashed monkeys it wouldn't happen.

[uberbabe.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of that. I suppose they couldn't just take old copies of the movie and put on new labels for kellogs without it costing a whole lot of money. Yup, DVD's gotta be cheaper than the plastic spinning tops.

[evilyn13.livejournal.com]

I noticed that they had started giving away cds with computer games as well. i got myself a copy of "Sorry" with breakfast one morning.
I think I would have preferred a comic with some 3-D glasses, to read while I ate, but whatever...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkpixie_/]

I've been getting those games for the kids for over a year now..heheh Evan got a Hockey DVD in his cheerios one fatefull day last spring and that is when I knew, time to get a DVD player... *gasp*

But I agree, I have fond memories of learning french from the little games and stuff they put on the back of my count chocula and boo berry cereal when I was a youngin...

Buy! Buy More! Buy More And Be Happy!

[sovietnimrod.livejournal.com]

I too was taken aback when I noticed DVDs and CD-ROMs in cereal boxes.

How much does it cost to make mass-produced copies of DVDs? It can't be all that much because unless there is no profit motive, neither the manufacturers nor cereal companies - one of which must be footing the bill - would be doing so.

Either that or the DVD manufacturers are trying to bait-and-hook kiddies into buying more DVDs or DVD players. I can imagine there are some some parents (who don't have a DVD player) who are now are getting pressured by Litle Johnny to buy a DVD player - solely because he now wants to play his DVD that he gotin his box of Fruit Loops.

Re: Buy! Buy More! Buy More And Be Happy!

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

The DVD-player ploy may well be part of the motivation. I do know, however, because I was working for a CD/DVD/video wholesale manufacturer at the time that as of five years ago (when the technology was newer and production runs were smaller) it cost about 50¢ Canadian per unit to do a >10,000 run of DVD's, including packaging. The packaging, because it involves offset printing, is by far the most expensive part. Of course the cereal box DVD's don't require anything more elaborate than a simple sleeve so I'm guessing production cost per unit comes in somewhere under a nickel.

Insider information (from one who used to work in DVD duplication sales)

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

It costs less than $0.23 to make a DVD (physical material) - ironically the packaging and printing costs more. The Major plants were charging anywhere from 93cents to $2 to press and silk screen them ..but those are only in the 1-10K range

You run 100K or more , you're paying 30 cents each

Most costs for full DVDs are also coverning the cost to Create the content.

With movies like "ALICE IN WONDERLAND" ..chances are Disney made a bjillion of them , had underrun on their printing (the more expensive part) or had some misprinted ones (wrong colour, spelling on label, muddy logos etc) and had a whole whack of these things.

Chances are they were probably slated for destruction before some promo exec said ..give em away in kids cerial ..market our name to kids. Kellog proabably picked em up for a song.

Probably cost Kellog nothing to screen their name on the top. and throw them in the box (maybe 1cent each)

Disney gets marketing and solves its overrun misprint problem Kellog gets to give away a (appearently) high value prize. DVD manufacutrers sell more DVD players


As far as AMAZON selling them .. they are selling the package as well.

Re: Insider information (from one who used to work in DVD duplication sales)

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

It's not the Disney "Alice in Wonderland". Like Disney would ever give anything away!

Don't forget that the wholesaler is making a profit, too. The actual cost of production is going to be lower than what the discs wholesale for. If the movie distributor (or the cereal company for that matter) happens to own DVD production facilities things get even cheaper.