By Heather Taylor, Editor-in-Chief, PopIcon
Remember Life Cereal’s Mikey? The spokeskid’s back at the breakfast table in a new commercial that introduces the ad icon, and the Quaker-owned cereal brand, to the next generation.
Who’s Mikey?
Longtime Life Cereal fans will remember Mikey as “Little Mikey” from a popular Life Cereal ad campaign that initially airedin the 1970s.
The original spot shows three brothers during breakfast. A bowl of Life Cereal keeps getting pushed back and forth between two of the brothers. It’s a new cereal and it’s supposed to be good for you.
So, who’s gonna be brave enough to try it — and maybe like it? The brothers decide to pass the bowl off to their third brother, Little Mikey. They reason that Mikey won’t eat it because he hates everything.
To everyone’s surprise, Mikey immediately endorses the new, nutritional cereal by slurping down the bowl. This prompts his brothers to yell out, “He likes it! Hey Mikey!”
The “Mikey Likes It!” Life Cereal commercials were so popular that they ran on TV for over a decade and the campaign’s creators received Clios for their endearing work.
Mikey Circa 2024
Mikey’s 2024 revival has since dropped the “little” from the character’s name and paired the kiddo with a brother and sister in his family tree.
Most mornings are also pretty chaotic in the spokeskid’s household. A lot goes wrong, albeit in an amusingly musical jingle sort of way. Mom gets toothpaste in her hair and Mikey’s brother runs around the house in his underwear. Before long, it’s time for the family to gather around the breakfast table for the one cereal everyone can agree on.
A bowl of Life Cereal is pushed towards Mikey. Everyone else in the family likes it. Will he still like it all these decades later?
The answer is yes, of course, because a bowl of Life does taste pretty sweet no matter what decade you’re in. But Mikey has something else to say, too. As everyone rushes out the door to school and work, Mikey beamingly declares “I really love my life” as a new tagline for Life Cereal.
About the Author
Heather Taylor is the senior writer and editor-in-chief of PopIcon, Advertising Week’s blog about brand mascots. Got a pitch on brand mascots or want to wax nostalgic about characters? Drop her a line at howveryheather@gmail.com.
