Washington - Americans are eating less cereal, but executives at General
Mills are hoping they've found a way to revive sales: They are offering
customers a chance to win one of 10,000 boxes filled with nothing but Lucky
Charms marshmallows.
On its website, General Mills calls marshmallow-only Lucky
Charms "the unicorn of the cereal world - fantasized about, but never
seen." In reality, they come with more sugar per serving than a Snickers
bar or Twinkie.
It's a change in direction for the maker of Cheerios, Trix
and Wheaties, which two years ago announced it would remove artificial flavors
and colors from Lucky Charms marshmallows by 2017. That effort has since
stalled - company scientists have yet to find natural substitutes that won't
affect flavour - but Mike Siemienas, a Lucky Charms spokesman, says work is
ongoing. "It's still our biggest challenge," Siemienas
said. "We'll let you know once we've found a solution."
In the meantime, customers can try their hand at winning a
box filled with hundreds of marshmallows. Each six-ounce serving comes with 110
calories and 22 grams of sugar. (Regular Lucky Charms, by comparison, have the
same number of calories but less than half the sugar.)
"We brought it back because it's what our fans were
asking for," Siemienas said. "We're constantly getting calls, emails,
tweets, you name it, from people saying, 'When are you going to put out a
marshmallow-only box?' They're obviously obsessed."
The made-for-social-media campaign is the latest to
capitalize on the gimmicky and, arguably, gross, according to branding experts.
(Other examples: Starbucks' Unicorn Frappuccino, Jack in the Box's bacon
milkshake and Burger King's burger-meets-burrito creation, Whopperito.)
"The strategy is always the same: Generating social
media interest by creating something that's highly shareable just because it's
outrageous," said Kelly O'Keefe, who teaches creative brand management at
Virginia Commonwealth University.
"Companies don't consider that a lot of those shares
come from people saying, 'This is so gross,' or 'This is so weird,' and that
ends up undermining the credibility of the brand." General Mills, after all, is embracing the unhealthy with
its box o' sugar bomb - at least temporarily.
The last time General Mills ran a similar promotion, in
2015, it offered just 10 marshmallow-filled boxes. The winners were chosen from
a group of customers who posted photos on social media of themselves pretending
to hold boxes of Lucky Charms.
This time, the company is requiring participants to purchase
its cereal. Each specially-marked box of Lucky Charms will come with a code in
the inside panel. Customers can type in those codes online to see if they've
won. "We know people were disappointed when we did only
10," Siemienas said. "Now their dreams of having a box full of Lucky
Charms marshmallows can come true."
Nationally, cereal sales have been slipping for years falling
about 9 percent between 2012 and 2015 - as Americans buy more eggs, oatmeal and
Greek yogurt. And, research has shown, millennials are less likely to pour
themselves a bowl of cereal than their older counterparts because they find it
"inconvenient."
In recent years, General Mills has begun putting a
health-conscious spin on its cereals. Cheerios and many types of Chex, for
example, are now marketed as gluten-free.
Lucky Charms - which counts sugar and corn syrup among its
four most prominent ingredients - is promoted on the company's site as being
"made with whole grain, fortified with 12 vitamins and minerals, and a
good source of calcium." Its customer base, it said in 2013, is 40 percent
adults.
Siemienas said that the company isn't planning on offering
marshmallow-only Lucky Charms long term. "That's not in our plans,"
said Siemienas, whose breakfast of choice alternates between Lucky Charms and
Honey Nut Cheerios. "The oat pieces are still very important as well."