Last week when someone from MomCentral emailed me and asked if I'd like to review Kellogg's  new websites for Frosted Flakes Gold and Rice Krispies' Childhood Is Calling and get coupons in return, I said sure!  And now I can't get Tony the Tiger and his little slogan out of my head. 

So, anyway, I played around at childhoodiscalling first.  It's very bright and colorful, and kind of young, to my view, but I haven't had a chance to let the boys play around with it and see what they think.  Since they are currently grounded from the computer (actually, all screentime) for being little brats, maaaybe they will get a chance tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

I wish you could click on the Snap Crackle and Pop characters and get some sort of history/bio sillyness, because I was expecting that, but they don't link to anything.  I like the activities and crafts, things that I could conceivably make from stuff I probably have somewhere, without feeling like I have to live at Martha Stewart's house to make it work. 

I like that the coupon for a dollar off shows up on pretty much every page, so if you don't do it right away its not like you have to navigate back to it.

The games page is a bit convoluted and hard to figure out which game does what, and which you'd like to play without clicking on the link, and once you do that you have to wait for it to load before you can decide you don't want that game and go back out to the list and choose another game.  Generally kids don't have the attention span for this, at least mine don't.  I also thought the games were hard to figure out how to manipulate them and definitely require a parent to help navigate for younger ones, but again, I'm willing to bet if I put my kids on there they won't have any trouble, especially the seven yr old.  My five year old might struggle, but if someone helps him he'd be golden.

Speaking of golden, the Frosted Flakes Gold site is much more our style.  Sorry, I can't help the segues.
Initially I was given two different links - one that takes you to the Frosted Flakes Gold site for general nutrition information, and one that is actually for Frosted Flakes overall, including all products that fall under that category.  First, the Frosted Flakes site is bold and masculine and sporty, something boys like mine would be more interested in than the Rice Krispies site, which sort of felt like fairies and unicorns and rainbows other girly things.  This one is MANLY.  Tony the Tiger is all about SPORTS and FITNESS and other more masculine things that aren't pretty and swirly.  This is good.  And there's Tony in all his upper-body buff glory, giving us a very non-unicorny thumbs up.  You can see and feel the difference in focus here.
The partnership with ESPN is not obnoxious and forced, it makes sense and flows nicely.  The Eat Right links aren't informational without being condescending in a "we have to do this because too many american kids are overweight" kind of way.  And nevermind that if you are on the page for a certain length of time, it auto-loads a fresh page that says Hey, you've been sitting at the computer for too long, go outside and play!  But come right back in 15 minutes.  Or something to that effect.  It was kind of neat, but I have no idea when it kicked in because I had walked away for a few minutes or twenty.

I think all in all both sites work for what I think they are intended to do.  Childhoodiscalling is safe, and sweet and reminiscent, meant for younger kids and parents who want to let their kids interact with a fun character cereal without a bunch of crap in it.  And the Frosted Flakes Gold site definitely hits its mark, is more geared toward older kids who don't want sparkles and rainbows, they want real people, athletes, and a voice that speaks to them, not at them.  And of course, a little Tony the Tiger always feels good, no matter what age you are.