Snap, Crackle, Pow?

Kellogg's Corp. announced Wednesday that it will remove "immunity" labels from its Rice Krispies cereals. ("Now supports your child's IMMUNITY" the label announces across the front of the package. In smaller letters, it adds, "25% daily value of antioxidants and nutrients, vitamins A, B, C, and E")

In its press release, Kellogg's called the addition of antioxidants to the Rice Krispies (and Cocoa Krispies) formula "one way the Company responded to parents indicating their desire for more positive nutrition in kids' cereal."

"While science shows that these antioxidants help support the immune system, given the public attention on H1N1, the Company decided to make this change," the release continued.

According to Bruce Horovitz's article in USA Today, San Francisco's city attorney last week asked Kellogg's to prove its claim.

Many nutritionists were appalled by the claim; my favorite comment (quoted by USA Today) came from Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity: "By their logic, you can spray vitamins on a pile of leaves, and it will boost immunity."

Writing in her blog, Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, said, "In the absence of FDA action, food marketing is allowed to run rampant, and city and state attorneys are doing the FDA’s job."

This isn't the first time I've written about wacky claims for breakfast cereals (click here for comments on the "Smart Choices" program). But these claims aren't just wrong (although they are); they're stupid, too.

Rice Krispies is one of the best-known cereal brands in America. When you've spent years building a brand, why on earth would you risk it by tacking on a claim that, as Dr. Brownell said, "belongs in the hall of fame" (and, obviously, not in a good way).

Many years ago, the late great advertising genius David Ogilvy told his "Mad Men", "The consumer is not an idiot. The consumer is your wife."

Fool me once...