A trusted and beloved cereal for 80 years, Cheerios had started to lose ground in a world where people were starting their day without cereal.

People were turning to what they saw as healthier alternatives like yogurts and egg whites, overlooking the longstanding benefits of whole grain oats. Cheerios wanted to turn the cereal category around and remind consumers why cereal is a quick and healthy way to start their morning.

The opportunity was to connect with Baby Boomers (55+) who wanted to make heart-healthy decisions but found the commitment to be daunting and overwhelming. The brief was simple: help Boomers to understand that Honey Nut Cheerios was a simple, delicious way to start their heart-healthy journey.

We invited Boomers to have a change of heart by understanding that Cheerios was the simplest, most delicious way to start their heart-health journey.

We started by changing our Cheerios from their iconic ‘O’ shape to heart-shapes to help drive a clear connection between the heart-health benefits of oats and the cereal they’ve always loved.

We then asked Buzz, our long-standing mascot, to stage light-hearted interventions with Boomers who were stuck in their ways, helping them to understand that having a change of heart isn’t so hard after all. Throughout the campaign, we used Buzz to remind Boomers that the long journey to heart-health is taken one delicious step at a time.

The Boomer population in the US is one of the biggest audience cohorts in history - nearly 72 million. And, as they’ve famously reinvented other stages of their life, they are also entering into retirement in different ways. No longer are they expecting retirement to be retiring, they’re looking to be as healthy as possible. This is why they were foregoing cereals for other breakfast options, perceiving them as better for their heart-health. This behavior formed the basis of our approach.

This consumer felt that being heart-healthy was difficult and scary and that there was no way a healthy food could taste good. We needed to change that. Our core approach was to challenge this attitude by challenging what they thought they knew about our product. Not only was our product delicious and easy to enjoy - it was also a great way to help them on their heart-health journey.

For Heart Health month, February, Cheerios re-launched their original Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios with heart shapes for a limited time to remind consumers that Cheerios can help lower cholesterol which can lead to greater heart health. The first time in Cheerios history that the iconic “O” shape has been changed to hearts.

Along with the new product launch, the initiative was supported by a multichannel campaign, including film, radio, social media, online, and activations.

To launch the first year of the heart shaped product, Cheerios hosted a Facebook live event where Buzz announced the promotion. This was the first time a Facebook live event has featured an all animated character.

For Film and Radio, Cheerios tapped known grump, Leslie David Baker, to show his change of heart after Buzz gave him a few diet and exercise tips to improve his heart health. Lastly, social rounded out the campaign support.

When you’re the category leader, it can be hard to keep growing when you already have near-universal awareness. And especially when you lead a category that’s been experiencing long-term decline, that challenge is even harder. But we were able to overcome them with this campaign.

After nearly 10 years of sales declines, the Have A Change of Heart campaign turned the Cheerios business around with a 13% sales jump, unheard of in the category. With over 1B total impressions, we were able to get this important message out to our audience. We were able to increase ‘heart-health’ perceptions of Honey Nut Cheerios from 41% to 49% in the campaign period among Boomers, helping more of our audience to understand the heart-health benefits of our product and help more people take the first delicious step to heart-health.