Basic Trope: An ad for a cereal of dubious nutritional value is presented alongside more nutritious breakfast options to make it seem healthier than it is.
- Straight: An ad for Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs places the cereal box next to scrambled eggs, bacon, orange juice, milk, and French toast with syrup. (All Fake Food, of course.) A voiceover or a character in the commercial then says, "Part of this complete breakfast."
- Exaggerated: The cereal is shown as part of not only the complete breakfast, but a complete lunch, dinner, dessert, and snacks, as well. "Part of this complete day's worth of food."
- Downplayed: A bowl of Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs is shown with fruit sprinkled in it.
- Justified: In an increasingly health-conscious world, most parents know that Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs are not a very good breakfast on their own. So the company presents it along with more nutritious food to make it seem like it's only part of a meal, instead of a meal in and of itself.note
- Inverted: The makers of Corrugated Bran Puffs try to make their breakfast cereal sound more exciting and marketable than it is by presenting it as a standalone meal.
- Subverted:
- The cereal has been re-named Choco-Bombs and reformulated to be made with whole-grain rather than processed white flour, and fortified with all kinds of vitamins and minerals. The commercial makes sure the consumer knows that it's made with whole grain.
- Or it shows kids leading active, healthy lives. Sugary cereal won't be too disastrous if you actually get off the couch and away from the TV and play outdoors. So they imply that it's healthy that way.
- Double Subverted:
- And still presents the cereal alongside other breakfast items.
- Except it's marketed towards couch potatoes with gullible parents during Saturday Morning Cartoons, not to athletic or active children (who might not even watch TV, or who might watch TV but be too busy at some sport or another on Saturday mornings to see the commercial and ask for Choco-Bombs).
- Parodied:
- The Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs are showcased alongside a whole bowl of vitamins.
- An ad for something other than food, such as pants, uses the line.
- Zig-Zagged: Some of the commercials for Choco-Bombs play up their nutritional aspects, others play up their flavor aspects.
- Averted: Trope Co. doesn't play up nutrition or activity, or present the cereal alongside a big breakfast.
- Enforced: "We want people to buy our product, but we need them to think it's healthier than it is for them to do that."
- Lampshaded: "Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs. Apart of this complete breakfast."
- Invoked: Parents become reluctant to buy their kids sugary cereal, or buy it for themselves, as sugar is demonized.
- Exploited: Really smart parents know, however, that bacon, eggs, milk, juice, French toast with syrup, and sugary cereal combined would amount to at least half a day's worth of calories and still contain a lot of sugar and fat. But Trope Co. is banking that some don't know that and will buy Choco-Bombs because they think it's only part of a healthy breakfast.
- Defied: No one buys this, and Trope Co. has to find a new marketing strategy quickly.
- Discussed:Alice: Bobby, you can't eat Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs by themselves.Bobby: But I don't, Mom. I eat vegetables with them.Alice: You do that only because I make you.
- Conversed: "These ads are so silly and they only make the product look Damned by Faint Praise."
Back to Adjacent to This Complete Breakfast
