C’mon Google, do a Pixel cereal box giveaway for real

Creamy, crunchy, deliriously sweet kids’ cereal and milk was my nectar and ambrosia growing up. I would have eaten that stuff day and night — even if there weren’t toys occasionally waiting inside. Those days I got my Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs and a chance at a delightful new toy? Those were the best.

Sadly, Google’s marketing team didn’t quite capture that nostalgia in a new Pixel 4 giveaway — because the picture you see above (and its associated video) is a terrible, terrible lie.

Can you imagine the anticipation of cracking open a box of cereal wondering if a free $800+ smartphone is inside? That an explosion of alkali-processed cocoa and disintegrated corn might be accompanied by a flagship Google handset tumbling into your bowl?

But no. The reality is that 2,000 people who already pre-ordered the phone in the UK, already put their money down, are simply getting a fancy compartmentalized box with a bonus bag of cereal. It’s a nice gesture, but it feels pretty random. What does the Pixel have to do with breakfast? And Google’s going to offer something “FREE INSIDE” as its sticker shows, it might have wanted to pick something different than Google Photos uploads?

But imagine if Google had done it right and made it a total surprise. Your phone is IP68-rated, Google! It should be able to handle crushed corn dust and a splash of milk just fine. Yes, perhaps it’d be way too heavy for a box of cereal and give its presence away — but I’d definitely have mailed in quite a few box-tops for a chance at a phone with built-in radar. Sure would have beaten a propeller beanie, if you know what I mean.