New Shreddies
Mar 8, 2008 Advertising, Marketing & Communication
Think cereal is boring? Not anymore with new Diamond Shreddies!
As the Shreddies website says: Think that we can’t make 100% whole grain wheat Shreddies cereal even better?
Well, actually yeah.
Cereal commercials are typically boring. They either sell the health benefits such as All-Bran (10-day Challenge), Special K (Special K Challenge) or they create characters to appeal to the younger folks such as Rice Crispies (Snap, Crackle & Pop) or Cheerios (Buzz the Bee). How do you differentiate one variety of rice, wheat, nut and oats for another? And, how do you continue to do so over years, selling the same product?
Well, you could spend hundreds of thousands on innovation, extend the brand by adding strawberries or by creating a vanilla flavoured version. Or, do what Shreddies did and find another way to get attention without reinventing the product.
The campaign picks fun at both marketers and advertisers and the way we sell products. At the same time it teases naive consumers. Did they make “100% whole grain wheat Shreddies cereal even better” as the campaign gleefully jokes. Of course not, they turned Shreddies on its side figuratively and literally!
Instead of a new formula, a new flavour or an added fruit they came up with a new and creative way to talk about and build interest in Shreddies. Instead of spending a fortune on innovation, they spent their marketing dollars on new packaging, a cheeky campaign including the above television commercial, a new website and some mock focus groups (according to the Shreddies website: “The Diamond Shreddies focus groups took place in Toronto. The participants, questions and situations are real.”)
Silly or smart?
Popularity: 4% [?]
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March 10th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Shreddies campaign…..hugely funny and a great way to talk about Shreddies….you’re right, what else were they going to say? Legend has it that this was originally the idea of an intern….shows us all that great ideas can come from anywhere!
March 10th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Hubby and I thought the new campaign was genius – can’t believe it took them that long to come up with it. Makes me want to give them another shot, no matter how bland they actually taste
March 13th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Oh no!!!! Which one do I choose…..decisions decisions…..
hehe
~TW
March 15th, 2008 at 4:55 am
Hey Michelle,
Love the new look. Welcome to Wordpress. I think you’ll love it…
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:52 am
[...] 3rd, 2008 by Michelle in Advertising, Branding, Consumer Brands, New, marketing The brilliant “Diamond Shreddies” campaign I wrote about a few months ago just won two awards from the Canadian Marketing Association. They [...]
August 21st, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Trouble is .. now in August 2010, they have just bought out a “New Formula Shreddies” for the old favourite cereal .. and like some other manufacturers ( notably Typhoo QT Tea ) have cheapened the product by no doubt using less expensive constituents and have therefore spoilt the taste.
Bad show !!!!