Walking down the cereal aisle today, I observed three distinctly different box designs for Grape-Nuts Trail Mix Crunch. A week earlier, I had noticed only two of of the three and assumed that they were transitioning in a new look. But today, three entirely different boxes were on the shelf, each one containing exactly the same product. (Yes, I compared the ingredients and nutrition “facts” tables.)

This, despite claims that the middle product had a “great taste and lighter crunch” (always an important factor, no?), while the cereal on the right had “MORE! Raisins & Almonds,” a statement which, one could argue, does not make any particular claim due to its broken grammatical structure. It will form associations in people’s minds, just as mentioning “Iraq” and “Osama bin Laden” in the same breath will, but only because people are lazy, and not because of any truthful or meaningful claim. The box on the left does not mention Grape-Nuts at all.

Can anyone suggest a reasonable explanation for this? Could they be market-testing multiple designs to see which one sells best?