Now it all makes sense. I was wondering what them monks were angry about...

Personally, I'm more into Banana Nut Crunch.

Is it true that this Kellogg's ad made its debut on March 12, just 2 days before international attention turned to Tibet for more than breakfast cereal, and is still running afterward?

I remember in 1986 Kellogg's got upset when the Seoul Olympic organizing committee tried using a tiger logo Olympics mascot that looked too much like Kellogg's Tony the Tiger trademark, so there is a precedent on how the company keenly monitors its image in East Asia.

Meanwhile there seems to be a trend currently floating among American ad agencies involving the use of China themes and Chinese language.
Recent TV commercial examples I've noticed include Star Trek actor William Shatner speaking Mandarin to kung fu masters in a Priceline ad with the Korean title Tae Kwan Do, an ESPN network promo piece involving a white guy talking to workers in a Chinese sausage factory about basketball player Yi Jianlian, and most recently a black guy who goes to Hong Kong for a business meeting and ends up accidentally calling a Cantonese-speaking businessman "Stinky Fish Face"

Is this ad still on?
Personally, I don't like this ad. Monks are everywhere, why it has to mention Tibet in particular? Lots of people in the Western world use to treat Tibet as a separate region. Media should be blamed for that: where is the integrity? Please, Hongkong is not a country, Tibet is absolutely part of China!

whoops. Typo: Tibet is absolutely NOT part of China!

I can just imagine some marketing head at Leo Burnett saying "Tiger Monks of JiuJingShan?" No no no! Let's make it something easier...monks...monks...Shaolin's too cliche. Where else are there monks...Ah, Tibet!"

Not that I have high expectations for a cereal commercial, but if they're going to do it wrong, they might as well do it wrong with the right culture. It would have been nice to see a Tibetan temple, a stupa, prayer wheels, and prayer flags at least rather than the Chinese temple, Chinese gongs and bells, monks' robes with a very intriguing Chinese cut, and man speaking with that Chinese gongfu master-speaking-English accent.

Hi,
I worked on this ad - and art directed it -it's pure coincidence that it appears now bearing in mind the political situation in Tibet, but curiously so...

As far as the "Chinese" rather than Tibetan imagery, well, it's a combination of the two, but the brief was actually Hong Kong movies of the 70's which often visually confused Tibetan architecture with Chinese since they were shot on the mainland anyway - ie its "cod" Tibetan..

The ad is supposed to encourage "self-control" for ADULTS but also kids eating the product, now that advertising of cereals to kids has been reduced in the UK due to health concerns -hence the Buddhist / Zen motif of the ad'..