Frosted Cheerios, the newest member of the Cheerios cereal family, will soon hit store shelves in what General Mills Canada is anticipating will be one of its biggest product launches ever.

The frosted version of the old favorite has enjoyed tremendous success in the u.s., where it was launched in September of last year.

In its first eight weeks, 2.5 million cases of the cereal were sold to grocery stores, which had to limit the number of boxes purchased by consumers in order to avoid running out of stock.

‘As new products go in the cereal category, this has been clearly one of the most successful new products in the States in literally years,’ says Paul Vincent, director of marketing for cereals at General Mills Canada.

Shipping in Canada began this month, and the product will be available to consumers in the next two to three weeks.

‘You take your regular Cheerios, which consumers have loved for years, and put a delicious frosting on it and all of a sudden you have a really unique and great-tasting product,’ says Vincent.

The Cheerios family of products appeals to both children and adults, says Vincent, and the company anticipates the new frosted version will have a similar ‘consumption profile.’

Vincent confirmed television advertising, sampling and couponing will support the launch, but declined to say whether the nature of the television creative will be the same as that used in the u.s.

Advertising will begin when the company can ensure good retail distribution of the product, probably in the next couple of months, says Vincent.

‘Get Frosted’ is the slogan General Mills is using internally and with trade customers to ‘create a call to action,’ but Vincent did not say whether the tagline would be used in consumer advertising.

Television advertising in the u.s. used celebrities to create awareness for the product.

Among the personalities used in the commercials were comedian Chris Elliot; Calvert DeForrest, better known as Larry ‘Bud’ Melman from The Late Show with David Letterman; and Florence Henderson, the actress who played Mrs. Brady on The Brady Bunch.

The packaging for Frosted Cheerios is an electric blue box adorned with a large product shot, which Vincent describes as having ‘really good stopping power.’

The bright package, he says, is important to distinguish the new Cheerios from the 60 to 70 competing brands of cereal on the market as well as the other Cheerios varieties.

When General Mills started doing business in Canada in 1954, Cheerios was the first product it sold.

Since then, four new varieties of Cheerios have been added to the product line, including Honey Nut Cheerios (launched 1980), Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (1990) and Multi-Grain (1992).

‘Corporately we are always looking for new product opportunities in our cereal business,’ says Vincent.

‘Obviously, the opportunity to leverage the Cheerios name whenever it makes sense is always part of our consideration.’

According to Vincent, Cheerios products hold an 11% dollar share of the ready-to-eat cereal market in Canada, which A.C. Nielsen estimates to be worth $668 million.

The ready-to-eat cereal category is the third largest category in grocery stores after soft drinks and milk.