When it comes to breakfast, cereal was missing out on the conversation. We wanted to change that by getting people excited about cereal and making it interesting again. To do this, we inspired breakfast lovers to re-imagine what a bowl of cereal can be while encouraging them to ‘Stir It Up’ for themselves through culinary inspiration and flavor experimentation.

With the help of culinary innovators and chefs, we were able to demonstrate the untapped and inherent versatility of cereal through hands-on experiences (Street Cart and Restaurant Takeover activations) and inspiration (recipes and “how-to” videos) that ignited buzz amongst key media. Enriching, “snackable” content was captured throughout the campaign, resulting in a cache of cereal creativity that hadn’t been seen before in this century-old category. All content was captured and designed to live in the spaces that millennials are actively engaging with, accessing and sharing on digital and social platforms.

‘Stir It Up’ was launched in fall 2015 with our Street Cart activation featuring MasterChef Christina Tosi, creating custom cereal bowls for unsuspecting New Yorkers. This began a groundswell of brand awareness and new mindsets around cereal, plus a marketing exclusive in Business Insider and a robust New York media tour where Tosi re-imagined cereal recipes for editors at Good Housekeeping, InStyle and Glamour. To round out 2015, we partnered with boundary-breaking Chef Danny Bowien to open the first-ever breakfast service at NYC hot spot Mission Chinese Food. The menu was based entirely on cereal, where fusion-inspired dishes took the possibilities of cereal to the next level. The activation began with a press exclusive, resulting in coverage in HuffPost Live, GQ, Yahoo! News, Food & Wine and Men’s Journal. The experience was seeded and promoted via owned and social channels, amplified through earned media coverage.

‘Stir It Up’ led to a shift in brand equity and in how the brand itself operates by putting its food experience in the hands of food and media experts. Additionally, it utilized new areas of content creation and cultural assets to help reach the next generation of cereal eaters. The company opted out of a multi-million dollar TV campaign in favor of investing in a number of smaller influencers or consumer-created content vendors with the intent of optimizing their future marketing to tell a better food story. The company’s U.S. Morning Foods segment posted an increase in comparable net sales of 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter, with performance attributed to improving trends in the U.S. cereal business.

It resulted in the company’s highest-reaching PR campaign for 2015 with more than 532 MM earned media impressions (900+ placements), more than 100 pieces of culinary-inspired content, and video and media.