General Mills brings the sexy back to cereal
Oct 12th, 2013 by michellecheung2
Although the ready-to-eat breakfast U.S. market as a whole has $10 billion in annual sales, of which General Mills has a 40% share, boxed cereals have seen flat sales and declining volumes over the past decade, according to a recent report by Rabobank on U.S. cereal trends. The main cause of this trend is that consumers have a lot more choices in breakfast nowadays. To improve sales and volumes of boxed cereals, General Mills has launched the “Hello, Cereal Lovers” campaign which promotes rival brands along with General Mills brands.
“We’re very open to sharing and curating news and discussions regardless of the brand, because what’s important is what cereal fans themselves want to talk about, the hot topics,” director of communications for the Hello, Cereal Lovers initiative says. This integrated campaign focuses on driving engagement and interaction with consumers through sharing of cereal-based recipes, ideas, news and crafts activities sharing on its dedicated Web site and Facebook (see below), Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr presences.
Facebook Page
During the National Cereal Lovers Week (which is part of the campaign, Oct. 14-20), Justin Warner who is a winning contestant on Food Network’s “Food Network Star” program and chef/co-owner of Brooklyn’s Do or Dine restaurant, will be creating cereal-inspired dishes and hosting Google Hangout session.
The idea behind this “brand-agnostic” campaign reminds me of the discussion we had in class regarding how companies try to engage in online conversations without direct marketing. General Mills are interested in refreshing the idea that cereals is a traditional breakfast, so they want to know what consumers are passionate about cereals. Even though the campaign benefits the whole cereal market, I think General Mills is still the biggest winner because it currently has the biggest share in the cereal market and it presents itself as the initiator of this campaign.
Source: http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2013/07/24/General-Mills-Cereal-Lovers-072413.aspx