Breakfast of Cheating Champions – that’s the One for Me!

Dear General Mills:

For decades now, you’ve been touting Wheaties as the “breakfast of champions.” As a champion, I appreciate the elite status that Wheaties has earned in our culture. Which is why I find it necessary to write this letter; I regret that it has become necessary.

If, indeed, Wheaties is the breakfast of champions, what business do non-champions have partaking of it? It would dilute the phrase to utter meaninglessness. It would be like awarding a gold medal just for showing up. Calgary Flames fans might find that idea comforting, but I, for one, protest the misuse of the Wheaties brand as anything other than the breakfast of bona fide champions.

I could understand certain people – ignorant, or perhaps mischievous people – eating Wheaties even though they never earned the title of Champion. I can comprehend an incentive program, where people with demonstrated champion potential are given a taste of the breakfast of champions, to provide an idea of what they can achieve. I can even see an actual champion deigning to share some of his or her Wheaties with others at the table, much in the way an Olympic medalist might allow others to handle and appreciate the token of achievement. What I cannot fathom, however, is the apparent marketing strategy of your company regarding this breakfast of champions: promote it to absolutely everyone. Everyone, as you no doubt know, includes non-champions – in fact, as you probably also know, the vast, vast majority of people in the category of “everyone” are decidedly not of champion caliber. Let’s call them what they are: losers.

It disturbs me to no end that General Mills, a company I otherwise respect, would cheapen the breakfast of champions by allowing – nay, encouraging - losers to buy a product patently incompatible with their status. Would you also market high-performance sports cars to people sitting in jail on drunk driving convictions? Leather-bound special editions of classic works of literature to drooling toddlers? I no longer have the confidence that you would answer the way you ought.

It is with continuing bewilderment that I therefore ask – no,  demand - that General Mills cease this tawdry strategy of pushing patently inappropriate breakfast cereal to those who do not deserve it, and probably never will. We champions know all too well the pull of filthy lucre, of false achievement, but know how to rise above that base temptation.

Sincerely,

Lance Armstrong