CASE STUDY: Kellogg

To truly reach kids six to 12, moms, naturally, need to be onboard. So the folks at MindShare found a simple but clever way to have some of Kellogg’s main kids’ cereals reach moms and then have moms engage their kids with the brands, all while using a very cost-effective medium.

Goal/strategy

‘It’s difficult to communicate with kids,’ says Tim Hughes, managing partner at MindShare. ‘We buy a lot of YTV and Teletoon and there are some kids’ magazines out there, but a challenge when you’re advertising pre-sweetened cereals is that you want to make sure that mom’s onboard. So by going to the parenting magazines Today’s Parent and Enfants Quebec, we actually started talking to what’s called a ‘gatekeeper mom’ first, and gave her something that was of value to her kids.’

The value consisted of the Kellogg’s Kids Activity Book, eight pages of

kid-friendly games and puzzles, that allowed MindShare to tap the insight that moms are constantly looking for quality activities to experience with their children.

Execution

The sales promotion teams at the magazines created the booklet that ran in July issues of both magazines and was book ended between two full-page ads that remained as a DPS when the booklet was removed. It was 100% Kellogg branded with kid products like Tony’s Turboz and mascots including Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam embedded into the content.

Results

A research component built into the deal with the magazines has revealed encouraging results. ‘What was important was to be able to track the success of the program by going back to the readers.’ After a few weeks in-market, readers were contacted through the magazines’ online panels. The findings revealed that recall of the booklet was high and that six out of 10 parents had worked on the activities with their children.