Chef Mikey notes author Kraak, V, also did a study which included the use of Chef Wendell on the box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal which garnered sales of $262 M in one year, where $35 M was spent to advertise.

Kraak, V. was also the supervisor of Taylor Brownell’s paper The Use of Brand Mascots used by food and restaurant companies. This study stated children may form a para social relationships with mascots. (See below)

DeNunzio, M., Serrano, E., Kraak, V., Chase, M., & Misyak, S. (2023)

https://www.foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/view/1201/1167

The influence of brand-equity mascots used by food, beverage and restaurant companies on the diet of children and parents

Taylor Brownell

Thesis to be submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Science
In

Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise

Vivica I. Kraak (committee chair)
Adrienne Holz Ivory
Valisa Hedrick Sarah Misyak

May 9, 2017 Blacksburg, VA

Brand Recall and Brand Preferences of Young Children

“The cognitive outcomes examined in the Kraak et al. (2015) systematic review include: character or brand recognition, character trust, character and brand association, character preference, and taste or snack preference and appetite.¹³ Behavioral outcomes include: purchase request; food choice; food intake; and diet quality”

“Advertising and marketing strategies have been shown to strongly influence children and adolescents from a very young age.”

“This study demonstrated how entertainment companies’ licensed media characters can be used on healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables to increase children’s purchase requests and preferences for these products.”

“.⁸⁶ Brand mascots and media characters who have the ability to form attachments with young people can foster the feelings of belongingness and safety.⁸⁶ Additionally, characters who possess humanlike qualities and behaviors are more relatable to children and have similar attributes to young people.⁸⁶“

“Moreover, the development of parasocial relationships in education and interactive learning games have shown to be beneficial.⁸⁶ Using popular media characters in interactive games whom children have had exposure to, can aid in the development of children’s learning.⁸⁶ Intelligent characters are a popular technique used in many of these games, where characters are interactive, can talk, and can reply to children. These games are especially beneficial when characters are empathetic and sensitive to children.⁸⁶ Over time, these characters can help foster the development of parasocial relationships, where kids learn to trust and form attachments to these characters because of the timing and conversational responses in the games.⁸⁶“

Location