Business Notes PACKAGING

The artwork on the cereal box was meant to entertain breakfast eaters, but it wound up appalling some of them instead. A new package for General Mills' Count Chocula breakfast cereal features a rendering of Bela Lugosi from the 1931 film Dracula. Around the vampire's neck hangs a pendant that resembles a six-pointed Star of David, the symbol of Judaism. When the boxes first appeared in stores last month, offended shoppers complained to the Minneapolis-based company. After the Cleveland Jewish News (circ. 15,000) picked up the story, General Mills agreed to change the box cover to a design without the pendant. The offending package had gone through routine approvals, corporate officials explained, but no one at General Mills or its ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi Compton, had noticed the Star of David look-alike.