Social media is going crackers over a very cheesy saturation ad campaign spreading takeover Lunchables ads all over Muni buses, and some people just don’t have the appetite for this.
We all recall the Augusts and Septembers of our bygone childhoods, when the dreaded return to school at least brought the comfortable consolation of familiar ad campaigns from favorites like Trapper Keepers, Critter Sitters, and Wrangler Jeans. But what do the schoolchildren get in our current dystopian era of malnutrition and parents struggling through the income inequality era?
on the cursed Lunchables muni😈 pic.twitter.com/JlwRUAvXIL
— single player sevrinn🎮👾🎹 (@sev_welker) August 21, 2022
Those kids get Lunchables ads, now slathered in takeover advertising all over Muni buses across San Francisco, reminding the children that they will not be prepared a proper lunch with any love, nor will they be taken to school by a district that cares enough about them to spare them the horrors regularly encountered on SF Muni.
It’s a Lunchables themed wrapped Muni bus. 🚌 pic.twitter.com/GZYbHMSGI5
— Alex (@alex_harmon) August 24, 2022
Some are saying there’s a “Lunchables bus” in San Francisco. Oh, there are many, many Lunchables buses in San Francisco right now, an endless buffet of promotions for chicken nuggets, pizza, and extra-wiener size hot dog matter.
every single time I have seen the Lunchables bus, I have interrupted everyone I'm with to say "LOOK, IT'S THE LUNCHABLES BUS" and then cursed myself as I realize that's exactly what those corporate rat bastards at Lunchables want from me https://t.co/HsaipdBMiY
— harlo pippenger (dean preston)🌹🇵🇸 (@uhshanti) August 25, 2022
There are so many Lunchables ads on Muni buses right now that you’d think that Andreessen Horowitz just gave Elizabeth Holmes $800 million to reimagine a Web3 Lunchable. Yet this is not the case.
My psychologist: "The Lunchables bus isn't real. The Lunchables bus can't hurt you"
— Robert A. Hill (@Robyr) August 30, 2022
Muni Lunchables Bus: pic.twitter.com/8SGjqWsmkR
Lunchables remain the intellectual property of Kraft Heinz (yes, they merged in 2015). The boxed snack-slash-meal was created for the latchkey kid era in 1988, and originally marketed under the Oscar Mayer brand, until Kraft eventually swallowed Oscar Mayer whole. This whole thing appears to be nothing more than an attempt to hype Lunchables in a back-to-school marketing campaign.
Thank you to the Lunchables Corporation for single-handedly fixing the SF MUNI budget hole. I love Lunchables. pic.twitter.com/Bq4Zk5dx1R
— Kevin Burke (@derivativeburke) August 29, 2022
Will these Lunchables ads get the Billboard Liberation Front treatment, a la the 2012-era Muni Adbusters guerrilla parody campaign, which had hits like Fartine and Been Down on a Marine Letely? Maybe, maybe not, but that’s not going to tamper down the use of exterior advertising as a revenue source for Muni. After all, there’s no such thing as a free lunch
Related: Muni Bans All Political, Offensive, And Violent Advertising On Buses And Trains [SFist]
Top Image: Joe Kukura, SFist
