Oddball Cards, Ahoy!

My family went on vacation to the Wisconsin Dells last week - it's an annual family tradition that dates back to when I was in middle school, as Midwesterners do.  Since I am the only sibling who has completely (maybe) grown up, moved out of the house, and gotten married, I have not gone the last few years and instead have taken up responsibility for dog sitting.  Seeing as how I hate waterparks, pools, and getting wet in general, this arrangement is a-okay with me.

During the family's trip to the waterpark capital of the world, my wife and I drive the few miles from our apartment to my parents' house a couple of times a day to let the puppies out, clean up any mess they've made, top off the food and water dishes, as well as do a little bit of laundry and raid the pantries.  Plus, I get to play with the doggos.  All in all, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement.

A couple of days into their trip, while I was conducting one of those aforementioned raids for snacks through the pantry, a big, blue box of cereal caught my eye:

At first, I was taken aback by the fact that Chips Ahoy! now has their own branded cereal - no wonder we Americans are fat.  With the re-release of Oreo-O's, are we now in the middle of a no holds barred, cookie breakfast cereal bout?  Will we soon be seeing "Keebler Elf Krunch" or "Mrs. Fields Flakes" stacked on store shelves?  Yes, this is what really goes on in the wasteland that is my mind.

Once I got past that cookie conundrum, I noticed something else about the box of teeny tiny cookies - something you've probably already noticed by now.  According to the big and bold yellow ribbon on the top of the packaging, these "parts of a balanced breakfast" come with trading cards!

Now, I'm no soccer fan - I've been to exactly one game in my life and left in frustration as the contest would end in a scoreless tie - but, I will always go gaga over unexpected, oddball cards.  So, even though my parents weren't around and thus there was no "grown up to help to help you cut the cards out of the box," I grabbed a pair of scissors and set about freeing these footballers from their cardboard holding cell:

I wonder what my family will think when they reach in the pantry for their morning cereal and find this on their shelves?  Hey - they left me alone and unsupervised!

I knew that this promotion was going on this summer; but, seeing as how I am not much of a soccer fan and I have been trying to stay away from sugary breakfast cereals, I had not paid too much attention to these oddballs.  Plus, when Topps, Major League Soccer, and Post first joined forces last year to launch this promotion, I did my sampling of the product then - so, I guess you could say I got my fill.  However, the temptation was far to great when I found them simply staring at my face in my parent's pantry.

Without any further ado, let's take a closer look at the unexpected treasures themselves:

This panel is slanted very heavily towards forwards - is that where all the star power is in soccer?  I truly do not know.  All I know, is that as a Windy City native, I sure would have appreciated the inclusion of a Chicago Fire player.  Apparently, there are four different, four cards panels available on the backsides of Post products and not a single one of them features a single "Fireman."  Where's the love for Bastian Schweinsteiger?

Also, today I learned that LA has not one, but two professional soccer franchises.  I was not previously aware that the LA Football Club (for which Christian Ramirez stars) is an entirely different entity from the LA Galaxy.  I guess if any market can sustain two MLS franchises, it would be one such as the City of Angels.  Of the two clubs, I am much more familiar with the latter, thanks to David Beckham and this snippet from "I Love You, Man:"

You learn something new everyday, right?

My favorite card of the bunch is probably Bradley Wright-Phillips, mostly just because I am a big fan of Red Bull... the energy drinks, not the football club.  Speaking of which, it throws me off how much corporate sponsorship has intertwined itself with their sport, with companies slapping their names on the front of team uniform kits and, heck, even straight up naming a team after a product.  I don't know how I feel about that, but I guess MLS doesn't have the deep pockets that the NFL does and has to make money where they can.

I like simple design, with the white borders that are sorely missed from Topps Flagship products and the prominent use of team colors and logos.  Honestly, this is a layout that I wouldn't have mind seeing used for baseball's Flagship.  Although, the Topps logo in the upper right hand corner is unusually large... I guess they have to remind you who is being these cards since they are coming from a fair unusual source.

Oh, and I feel like I should show you how the backs of these cards look, as well:

Blank, cereal box cardboard.  Very low maintenance, as I imagine it would be disruptive to the manufacturing promise and damaging to the bottom line to produce cereal boxes with printing on both sides.

In the end, these soccer cards are fun, appealing to the eye and I'm left wondering why the old bubblegum company can't make something like this happen with their baseball division.  Granted, over the past few years, Topps has done a good job in expanding their horizons by partnering with other companies.  For instance, PKWY Socks, Utz Potato Chips, and New Era, among others, have gotten with Topps to release promotional sets in the recent past.  However, these products are always basically a reprint of the main Flagship cards with a different, branded stamp.  I mean, I appreciate them diversifying their portfolio, but this just appears lazy.

Where's the creativity and wonderment?  If Topps can get a little more imaginative with their soccer stuff, why can't they do something similar with their baseball products?  They did a really good job of creating a fun, original tie-in product with their Marketside Pizza cards from a few years back; however, since then, it's been just stamps and logos.  I tell ya, if Topps did this same promotion - heck, even with just this same design again - with panels of a baseball cards, instead of soccer, on the backs of Post Cereals, I would probably be eating Original Chips Ahoy! Breakfast Cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

In the meantime, my family just got home yesterday and have probably noticed that their pantry is much less filled than it was when they left.  I should probably start "kicking" around a good idea for an excuse!

Posting About Post

Throughout the last month or so, football has been the center of the sporting world's attention.  Of course I'm not talking about the gridiron, I'm speaking to the sport that we Americans have branded soccer for some reason.  While, for many years,  the narrative has been that Americans don't give a damn about soccer/football/futbol, the tide seems to be turning somewhat.  Despite not having a dog in the fight this time around, my timeline was filled with people discussing the international game, bemoaning flopping, and parsing the action in this morning's early morning final match.

Concurrently, interest in our country's domestic soccer league also appears to be on the rise.  Major League Soccer has added five new clubs to their roster since 2015, with three more expansion teams on their way.  That being said, the average broadcast of an MLS game only brings in about 30,000, a modest total when it comes to pro sports.  Thus, the organization still has some work to do when it comes to promoting their rapidly expanding league.

On that note, while walking through the aisles of my local CVS yesterday evening, I noticed MLS's latest initiative to further their brand:

Post Cereal is apparently the official breakfast cereal of Major League Soccer.  As an devoted lover of all things breakfast cereal, I'm actually kind of surprised that I didn't already know this when I came across this box of Honey Bunches of Oats.  This brand just so happens to be one of my favorite brands of the breakfast staple.  

I went into that corner drug store in need of twenty dollars in cash to blow at a poker game; but, with no Chase Bank ATM nearby, I opted to just buy myself a small treat and get cash back on the transaction.  When I saw the back of this cereal box, I instantaneously knew what my evening snack was going to be.  Yea, I munch on dry cereal as a snack - I wasn't kidding around when I said that I love breakfast cereal.

Now, to be honest, I'm not much of a soccer fan.  I've attended one Chicago Fire game in my life and I ended up leaving before it ended in a 0-0 tie, which just seems wrong to me.  However, I am a fan of the concept of oddball trading cards on the back of cereal boxes!  Considering the situation at hand, this was a no-brainer purchase, in my eyes.

Seeing as Post is the official cereal of MLS, the two entities partnered with Topps to offer up panels of trading cards on the backs on certain cereals.  The four cards you get vary on the kind of cereal you purchase - for example, Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds will always net you the four players that you see above, while HBoO w/ Banana Bunches will feature an entirely different panel.  Other brands that are participating in the promotion include Fruity & Cocoa Pebbles, Oreo O's, and Honeycombs.  I was hoping to find a box with a Chicago Fire player included; but, sadly, CVS didn't carry any of those other kinds.

After scarfing down a bunch of bunches and losing all of my poker money (rather quickly), I made sure to "ask a grown up to help me cut the cards out of the box," as instructed by the box.  But, since my wife could only roll her eyes at me, I had to do it myself.  Don't worry though, all of my fingers are still attached.

Like I said, I'm not much of a soccer fan; thus, I don't know much about the players depicted on these oddballs.  Although, the name Jozy Altidore does ring a bell.  As it turns out, that makes sense, as the Toronto FC forward in one of the more accomplished players in North American soccer history.  The New Jersey-born player has been on the professional scene since 2006, playing in the MLS, as well as across the globe (including the Premier League), and representing the United States in many international tournaments.  

I guess I have subconsciously absorbed some soccer awareness at some point.

The cards themselves feature a sleek, angular design that keeps everything nice and simple.  It's not bad, though I would prefer that the blue triangle which contains the player name, number, position and team be a tad small, as it ends up blocking out nearly a third of the photograph.  Additionally, there is an abnormally large "Topps" logo in the upper left corner - there will not be any questions as to who was behind the creation of this set!

As for the backs, well they're blank - so, I won't be getting any stats or biographical information to educate myself on the players or the game.  I suppose that's a necessity of the manufacturing process; I can't  imagine it would be easy to print on the outside AND the inside of the cereal box.

All in all, the cards are decent and the concept is pretty nifty.  Of course, this is not Post's first venture into the world of trading cards... far from it.  In the early 1960's, the cereal company cemented their place in hobby lore by using the back panels of their cereal boxes to print up baseball and football cards that sports-loving children had their parents pulling out their hair over trying to find the right boxes.  You'll see these much-ballyhooed cards appear on the blogosphere from time to time and I even have a few myself:

Then, the breakfast giants revisited this concept in the early 90's, including cello-wrapped cards inserted into the boxes throughout the first half of the decade.  In fact, it was through one of these promotions that I acquired my very first baseball card, a 1994 Post Mark Whitten card that I still have kicking around somewhere today.   Unfortunately, I cannot find it at the moment, otherwise I would include a photo of it in this post.  Please settle for Mark Grace and Ryne Sandberg from the 1991 & 1992 editions, respectively:

Anyway, it's nice to see that Post is getting back into the trading card game.  While soccer cards are nice and all, I can think of a certain other sport that is having some difficulties when it comes to marketing their game to children.  What better way is there to reignite interest in baseball among the youth of America than through the backs of the cereal boxes? After all, think of how many kids down a bowl of cereal every morning before school.

C'mon Post, make it happen!  Now that Topps seems to warm to the idea and they have reaffirmed their exclusive MLB license, this seems like a perfect promotion to me.  Hopefully these soccer cards move some units, then the old bubblegum company might actually be interested in expanding the promotion.

Do you think it would work?