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Integrated Marketing Communications Plan
Brett Egizi
Conor House-Myers
Justin Lavalle
Max Mirabile
Olivia Zacks
Annie Zinkus
Endicott College
BUS 403
Professor Williams
Table of Contents
Section A. Integrated Marketing Campaign Overview & Objectives……………………..1
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………
Market Product Grid………………………………………………………………..
Promotions Strategies Summary……………………………………………………
Flowchart…………………………………………………………………………...
CDI & BDI Comparison Chart……………………………………………………..
Section B. Advertising Overview & Plan Summary………………………………………6
Current Advertising & Plan…………………………………………………….......
Communication Objectives…………………………………………………………
Strategy & Mix Element Integration……………………………………………….
Tools and Vehicles/Testing Methods Selection…………………………………….
Section C. Direct Marketing Overview & Plan Summary………………………………..11
Current Direct Marketing & Plan…………………...……………………………...
Communication Objectives…………………………………………………………
Strategy & Mix Element Integration……………………………………………….
Tools and Vehicles/Testing Methods Selection…………………………………….
Section D. Interactive and Internet Promotions Overview & Plan Summary……………...16
Current Interactive and Internet & Plan………………………………….................
Communication Objectives…………………………………………………………
Strategy & Mix Element Integration……………………………………………….
Tools and Vehicles/Testing Methods Selection…………………………………….
Section E. Sales Promotions Overview & Plan Summary………………………………….21
Current Sales Promotions & Plan…………………………………………………..
Communication Objectives…………………………………………………………
Strategy & Mix Element Integration……………………………………………….
Tools and Vehicles/Testing Methods Selection…………………………………….
Section F. PR and Publicity Overview & Plan Summary………………………………….26
Current Public Relations/Publicity & Plan…………………………………………
Communication Objectives…………………………………………………………
Strategy & Mix Element Integration……………………………………………….
Tools and Vehicles/Testing Methods Selection………………………………….
Section G. Personal Selling Overview & Plan Summary…………………………………31
Current Sales Personal Selling & Plan……………………………………………..
Communication Objectives…………………………………………………………
Strategy & Mix Element Integration……………………………………………….
Tools and Vehicles Selection……………………………………………………….
Testing Methods…………………………………………………………………….
Section H. Vehicles and Tools Plan Summary………………………………………….....37
Section I. Budgeting, Monitoring, Evaluation and Control Plan & Rationale……………38
Section J. References…………………….…………………….…………………………..39
Appendix A…………………….…………………….…………………….………………40
Figure 1: Market Product Grid……….…………………….………….…………...
Figure 2: Promotions Strategies Grid…...……….…………………………………
Figure 3: Flowchart…………..………………….…………………….…………...
Figure 4: CDI/BDI……………………………………….…………………………
Figure 5: Budget Allocation………………………………………………………..
Appendix B…………………...……….…………………….……………………………...46
Figure 1: Advertising Promotion Examples…………………..……………………
Figure 2: Direct Marketing Promotion Examples…….……...……………………..
Figure 3: Interactive/Internet Promotion Examples……….………………………..
Figure 4: Sales Promotion Examples……………………………………………….
Figure 5: Public Relations Examples…………………...…………………………..
Figure 6: Publicity Examples…..…………………….……………………………..
Figure 7: Personal Selling Examples…………..…….…………………….……….
Appendix C………………………………………………………………………………….54
Figure 1: Advertising Vehicles Chart……………………..…..……………………
Figure 2: Direct Marketing Vehicles Chart…….…….……...……………………..
Figure 3: Interactive/Internet Vehicles Chart…….……….………………………..
Figure 4: Sales Promotion Vehicles Chart………………………………………….
Figure 5: Public Relations/Publicity Vehicles Chart……………………………….
Figure 6: Personal Selling Vehicles Chart……..…….…………………….……….
Figure 7: Tools Vehicles TRP Geographical Chart Market………………………...
Figure 8: RAP
Section A IMCP Overview & Communication Objectives
Section A1:Our group decided to stay within the Cheerios brand and create a new product line for
the company. Our product is a frozen cereal dessert, shaped like a bar and packed with both
classic cheerios and Haagen-Dazs ice cream, which is one of the many brands that General
Mills operates. We feel that this product combines two separate meals in an exciting and unique
way, and will attract dessert lovers who are also aware of their health. Our slogan for the frozen
cereal bar is “desserting breakfast”, conveying that we are turning a well-known breakfast food
into a dessert. Using the AIDA Customer Response Model/Decision-making process, we feel we
will attract our target audience effectively and efficiently. Initially, we plan to market in Dallas, TX
and Orlando, FL. Our reasoning behind this is that Dallas is the second largest consumer of ice
cream in the US, and Orlando is in the warm south where ice cream is very prevalent. Through
the use of Guerilla Marketing, a strong social media presence, and eye catching shelf displays
and point-of-purchase displays in our retail stores, this new cheerios product line should
eventually be recognized and enjoyed nationwide.
Section A2:The main goal of our Integrated Marketing Communications Plan is to market and
position our new product of Honey Nut Cheerios meets Haagen-Dazs ice cream. We are using
multi-tier/sub-branding in order to make this happen because both Cheerios and Haagen-Dazs
are under the same umbrella corporation of General Mills. Our new product, which will be seen
along the lines of “desserting breakfast”, is going to be putting a new spin on what kids and
families can have for breakfast.
Our direct target market is children—ages 6-12, but they aren’t the ones doing the
buying. So our next target market we plan to focus on are the parents of these health-conscious
families living down South in the US. These families are ones who typically have a yearly
income of $51,000 and are very health-conscious when it comes to feeding their families right.
With our new product we are introducing to the market, we are giving kids (and the whole family
too) an excuse to have dessert for breakfast, with having a frozen yogurt-like pouch with swirls
of chocolate and Honey Nut Cheerios as little mix-ins. Cheerios are heart-healthy and good for
the cholesterol.
These families are typically average—they shop at the typical convenience store, looking
for all the right prices. They also subside in cities like Orlando, Florida and Dallas, Texas. These
adults are anywhere ranging from 28-40 years old, are extremely family-oriented, either rent or
in the process of owning their home, and are comfortable with spending but still looks for the
best deal for their dollar. The mother’s of these families are the ones who do all the shopping—
which makes them either a stay at home mom or just working a part time job. They are highly
health-conscious, like previously mentioned, keeps up with the health issues that concern the
country like child obesity and heart disease, keeps up with online social media and buzz, looks
to keep everyone in her family on a healthy and nutritional diet—all while making time for her
husband and kids. These moms tend to be ambitious, hardworking, personable, family-driven,
hard working, active, and health-conscious.
Weekly trips to the supermarket are a must with young, growing kids and a full-time
working husband to feed, so she is always making trips and trying new snacks/foods to keep
her family happy. Since she is actively online, she’s always looking for special deals, offers, and
promotions offered online. With accounts on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, she is always
connected to her favorite brands’ accounts like Cheerios. When on the Internet, she searches
online articles about health concerns/facts dealing with the food her family likes. She also visits
retail food stores’ websites to keep up with special sales of the week, and when she’s actually in
the store making the purchase, she is highly aware of the displays and supermarket coupon
catalogs being offered.
To get our new product across to moms and families like this, we plan to integrate the
four C’s of customer needs, customer costs, customer convenience, and customer integrated
marketing communications for they help a company define its strategy more efficiently.
Companies use them to improve company offerings along with the traditional marketing model
because it helps them focus on what the consumer wants and is willing to invest in. They’re
willing to invest in something convenient to them, a cost that depends on the consumer, a
concept of communication and the ability to make the consumer the primary focus. We also plan
on using the four P’s of marketing, which include Price:Cheerios aims to increase their annual
sales by 5%, cold cereals accounted for $28 million in 2013. In the U.S., Cheerios aims to
match their dollar share growth from 2013 of .3 increase (currently at 31.0%) Place: Cheerios
aims to increase distribution to the distributors such as Stop and Shop, Target, Shaws etc by
5%. Promotion:Cheerios aims to maintain their rate of decrease in advertising expense of 2%
in 2012 and 2.8% in 2013 while still maintaining their success in sales and advertising reach.
Product: Cheerios offers 15 healthy variations of cheerios in order to reach the health
conscientious consumers. The objective is to emphasize the health benefits the cereal provides
by adding the health benefits on the front of the box. The plan is to make the health benefits as
noticeable as possible to draw in the healthy consumers.
One of our biggest competitors in the cereal/breakfast industry is Kellogg’s Frosted
Flakes. They’re more known and sought out after kids who have a sweet tooth for their flakes
are coated with a sugary frosting coating. Kellogg’s uses positioning by cultural symbols, with
Tony the Tiger, who’s been used for over 60 years as their logo/mascot because it successfully
differentiates its products from its competitors (Belch, 2015), whereas Honey Nut Cheerios’
Buzz the Bee is making a comeback. Frosted Flakes are also the only brand to associate its
cereal with athleticism and sports across its marketing (cerealfacts.org), showing how they’re
into being fit and healthy. Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes’ brand identity is seen mainly through Tony
the Tiger and the design and packaging of the box: colorful with orange, blue and white and a
cartoon picture of Tony (which is the engagement feature), their health features on the front,
their slogan “Frosted Flakes are more than good, they’re G-R-R-REAT”, and an actual picture of
cereal. Thus, their image shows as being kid friendly with health benefits that parents see and
like, they support athleticism and being active in saying, “Flakes for fuel, Frosting for fun”.
Frosted Flakes successfully uses branding strategies like their corporate branding of
“Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes are more than good, they’re G-R-R-REAT!”, which is a clever and
easy to remember jingle for anyone of all ages. They have successful brand
extensions/varieties such as their Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes cereal, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes
reduced sugar cereal with fiber and Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes Choco Zucaritas cereal. They use
ingredient branding by highlighting the fact that their frosted flakes are “corn” flakes, corn flakes
crumbs, and crunchy nut. And they are also successful with co-branding, for they’ve offered
prizes such as Ford Hot Wheels toy car, Star Trek flash drive, Spiderman 3D movie tickets.
They’ve also partnered with the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, sponsored Adventures of
Spiderman in the 1950s—showing that they’ve been around for a while and plan on keeping it
that way.
Overall, Honeynut Cheerios and Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes have many differing yet
engaging qualities, but Cheerios comes out as being top in cereal not just because of their cute
cartoon mascot of Buzz the Bee, or of their highly-engaging online commercials, or because of
their health-hearty mantra—Honey Nut Cheerios is a family brand that has been around for a
while, but will continue to be around for way longer.
Section A3:
Promotions Strategies SummaryCheerios were first introduced on May 1, 1941 as CheeriOats and the name was
eventually changed to Cheerios in 1945 (Wikipedia). In 1979, the second departure from
original Cheerios, Honey-Nut Cheerios was introduced. Cheerios has come a long way over the
last seventy years, to enshrine itself as the most trusted cereal in the industry as well as an
established brand at the forefront of breakfast everything. Cheerios has gained much
recognition and consumer values over the past seven decades for their cereals, but the major
cities of America have not been introduced to General Mills newest product. General Mills
products, like Cheerios and Haagen-Dazs ice cream are sold in convenient superstores like
Wal-Mart and BJ’s, along with smaller grocery stores like Price Chopper and Stop n’ Shop,
however these brands have never worked together directly. It made logical sense to use the
AIDA model, in this case, to launch a campaign for a completely new product coming from the
General Mills factory. The AIDA model describes consumers as passing through multiple steps
in order to come to the ultimate conclusion of making a purchase: Attention, Interest, Desire and
Action (Belch & Belch, 2011). In Appendix 1, Figure 1, the promotional methods, objectives,
major selling ideas and strategies that will be used in achieving new product success are
described thoroughly and will assist in seeing this integrated marketing campaign come to
fruition.
Although Cheerios is a well-established brand whose known for bringing the family
together for breakfast, they’ve now determined a successful way to the bring the family together
for dessert, as well. The first step begins with attention in the cognitive stage. In this stage our
target audience becomes aware of the new product (Belch & Belch, 2011). With the campaign
hoping to catch fire by the time of summers heat, it is anticipated that attention will constantly be
gained over the six to eight month duration of the campaign but particularly over the course of
the first few months. This objective will result in creating attention among 90% of the target
market through April 1, 2015- June 1, 2015. By focusing on the Spring months, we can have a
sub-campaign running called “Desserting Winter” which hypes our target audience up for the
warmer months, beginning with “Desserting Breakfasts” ultimate release on April 1, 2015.
According to the International Dairy Foods Association, June is the highest production month of
year for ice cream. This will be done by focusing on a well-established such as Cheerios
expanding their market and adding dessert to their repertoire. Cheerios aims to offer to their
existing target market (breakfast/cereal lovers) and to their new target market (dessert/ice
cream lovers). The affordability aspect will be focused on while approaching the objective with
position and brand image tactics. We plan on expanding Cheerios favorable identity by bringing
a new, healthy, delicious product to the market and position the Honey Nut Cheerio infused ice
cream based on attributes, benefits and the fact it is a reasonably inexpensive dessert in a
market of over-priced, under-sized desserts. This new product will be eye-catching, as it enters
a new market where cereals have never been before. This is an ice cream product (packed
similarly into cartons alike those of Ben & Jerry’s and on-the-go products similar to Klondike),
that consists on vanilla ice cream with honey swirls, chocolate chunks and honey-nut cheerios
mixed in. The promotional mix elements for this particular step involve advertising and
PR/publicity, along with an interactive guerrilla marketing campaign using ice cream trucks. In
order to pull consumers toward Cheerios digital platforms, we believe a campaign centered
around turning old, overused ice cream trucks into new and improved one’s, while driving them
around the neighborhoods of our target audiences in Orlando, FL and Dallas, TX, will allow
extensive attention to be generated for this new product. Families will associate the trucks with
positive family values, summertime memories and will become curious of the sampled product.
By offering samplings to our audience and not requiring a payment, it is important to establish a
respectful and generous relationship with our audience and let them decide whether or not they
wish to invest in the product themselves. The ice cream will be brought to our audience and by
distributing our new products for free directly to our target audiences, attention will harnessed
and used to show families that Cheerios doesn’t do just breakfast, but dessert as well and if you
start the day with Cheerios there’s no reason it can’t end with them. By teaming up with
Haagen-Dazs premium ice cream, General Mills is sub-branding and placing an emphasis on
the very realistic possibility that a day can begin(bowl of Cheerios) and end (bowl of Honey Nut
Cheerios ice cream) with Cheerios. Indulge. A more in-depth look at each promotional element
and their respected vehicles will be further discussed throughout the rest of the marketing plan.
The second stage, which involves interest, will also use elements and tactics that will be
staggered throughout the six-eight month long campaign, but will be very relevant through April
1, 2015 and June 1, 2015. In this stage, consumers will begin to acquire feelings toward the
brands new product (Belch & Belch, 2011). In order to create the favorable feelings like
emotional appeal/pleasure, affiliation, relaxation, comfort and desirability, certain tactics and
elements will need to be put to use to create an interest among 70% of the targeted market.
Noticing that the target audience is now much larger than before by opening up to a larger
market (cereal to ice cream), it’s important to focus on the fact that General Mills (Cheerios) is a
well-recognized brand that provides families (parents and tween-aged children) with healthy,
affordable, desired breakfasts, it’s important to position that they now provide the same target
audience with a healthy, affordable and desired dessert. These aspects need to be pushed
onto the target audiences in Orlando and Dallas, because they were determined as the best
suitors for a product of this sort and they both reside in the southern part of the country which
tends to stay warmer longer. The idea that parents and their tween-aged (6-12) children can
now indulge themselves in a heart-healthy breakfast, turned dessert and that you don’t need to
be a kid to go crazy at the mention of ice cream. The so-called harmful effects of ice cream
deters parents from purchasing said products sometimes (Magforwomen.com) and it should be
shared that ice cream does more good than bad to a person’s health. By focusing on the fact
that our product is rich in calcium, we want our consumers to know that calcium builds the body
and is necessary for supporting other critical body functions, a calcium rich diet prevents lost
weight from crawling back, lessens risk of colon cancer and tackles PMS mood swings
(Magforwomen.com). Calcium also helps to maintain a low Glycemic Index(GI) and is full of
vitamin B12, A and D along with other proteins. To successfully achieve this communication
objective, PR/publicity, an Interactive social media presence, and print advertisements (digital
Ads also) will all be integrated.
The third step, which can be related to the affective stage, is desire. Here, 25% of the
target audience will begin to crave Cheerios “Desserting Breakfasts” yummy ice cream
sandwiches, bites and 18 oz. cartons. 18 oz. cartons specifically because AdAge.com ran an
article criticizing Haagen-Dazs decision to reduce serving sizes in past years to 14 oz. for
expense purposes. Ben & Jerry’s called out their competitor and caused an uproar in the ice
cream industry. In order to put the silly accusations to rest, General Mills and Haagen-Dazs
have decided to run another sub-campaign called “Pin+ Size” which focuses on the cartons
being a pint(16 oz.) plus more (2 extra ounces). In order to create and establish the brand’s
fullest potential of desire, PR and direct marketing will be used throughout the full “Desserting
Breakfast” campaign to create desire in the new product. It’s also important that we focus
primarily on a vanilla ice cream base for our product due to it being the country’s preferred
option according to IDFA. A heavy focus will be placed on the online aspect in this stage, in
order to draw our consumers to the website and Facebook page. Here, they will be informed of
the product, new offerings, potential contest and the expanding of Cheerios. Direct marketing
will be promoted to push consumers to want the new product even more when special events
occur and offerings are in place. The idea that parents can feel much better about their guilty
pleasure (ice cream for dessert) and be willing to feed it to their children, will be pushed heavily
and will utilize positioning and the newest brand image. This will be done through an
expression of loyalty to our consumers, asking for an equal loyalty in return. This will be during
April 2015 to September 2015 and will be strategically implemented before sales promotions
take place and action officially occurs.
The fourth and final step is Action. In this stage, the target market will choose trial,
purchase, adoption or rejection (Belch & Belch, 2011). Through the 6-8 month campaign it is
hoped that more than a single purchase will occur among 5% of the target market due to the
unique sales promotions and personal selling. Through April 2015 to September 2015 multiple
sales promotions will be implemented with the other promotional methods listed above in the
other stages. Point of purchase displays will play a large role in this stage and will push the new
products toward our audiences in retail stores. The ice cream trucks will attract everyday
people and will encourage them to enjoy an old favorite breakfast as a new favorite dessert. By
providing several different sales promotions, the target audience will be consistently desiring
and purchasing the product very often. By taking action, the campaign will be taking off.
The agency heading the campaign will be Saatchi & Saatchi, a full service integrated
branding agency based out World Trace Center 1in New York City. General Mills and S&S
have been working together for many years now and have firm understandings of the way each
companies choose to work and are on-board with the way this campaign has been envisioned
to run. Because print advertisements are to be a largely important aspect of this campaign,
General Mills will team up with Mullen Advertising in Boston, Massachusetts due to their
tremendously creative and successful track record and globally renowned clients. As for the
guerrilla marketing campaign, that will be constructed and completed by an internal agency.
With the help of these outside companies, General Mills will be able to build unreal hype and
introduce their new product to the cities of Dallas, TX and Orlando, FL and eventually infiltrate
the entire United States. Gaining traction in other parts of the country will enhance the brand by
increasing sales, equity and image. General Mills believes in continued innovation
(GeneralMills.com) and wish to create a “singular pleasure that millions of people enjoy every
day and night.”
CDI/BDIHoney Nut Cheerios is a well established cereal with strong brand awareness and a
loyal customer base. The Honey Nut Cheerios Yogurt/Ice Cream is a frozen treat that appeals
to children but also maintains a nutritious standard that is inherently reflective of the Honey Nut
Cheerios brand.
Specifically, the target market is children ages 6 to 12, and adults ages 30 to 49. The
two cities we are drawing research from are Austin, Texas, and Orlando, Florida. Given that this
product is a frozen treat, sales will most likely be stronger in locations with higher
temperatures.There is a large difference between the population of our target market in Austin
and the population of our target market in Orlando. Based on the sales of Honey Nut Cheerios
globally, the Honey Nut Cheerios Ice Cream or Frozen Yogurt product will be more popular in
cities with a greater population of families, and families with younger children. Once we
calculate the percentage of the market we can feasibly target in each location, we can then
apply the amount of dollar sales to the population of each city and generate a specific dollar
sales estimate (Belch, 2011). Based on this data, we can analyze how popular the frozen yogurt
will be in each location (Belch, 2011). According to our BDI/CDI, Orlando will yield higher sales.
Section A5:
Team: Cheerios/General MillsDate: 4.6/15Name: Justin Lavallee
IMCP4 / Persuasion Matrix for Jordan Speith for Cheerios Ice cream(See pp. 182-184/Belch text)
Dependent
Variables
Controllable Independent Variables(Communications Process Elements; See p. 146/text)
Source Message Channel
and/or media
Reciever Destination
Message
Presentation
2) Personal
vs
NonPersonal:
Cheerios
will be
utilizing both
personal and
non-personal
channels to
brand the
new Haagen
Dazs
“Cheerios
Ice cream”.
Cheerios will
use a
mixture of
TV
advertiseme
nts, Digital
advertiseme
nts, and out
of home ads.
Cheerios will
utilize
Facebook to
draw
consumers
to the
Product
website.
Posting
pictures of
the new
Breakfast
dessert will
induce
excitement
for the new
product.
Attention 4) Direct
Source:
Jordan
Speith will
speak
about the
new ice
cream
providing a
believable
and
trustworthy
opinion on
the new
product to
the target
audience
in TV
commercia
ls. His face
will also be
used in
print ads
and out of
home ads
like
billboards
etc.
(Belch)
The TV
ads will be
aired on
ABC
Family
during the
6:00 pm
showing of
Spongebo
b
Squarepan
ts in order
to target
the
children.
Out of
home ads
through
billboards
and bus
stops long
with radio
ads will be
used to
target the
parents.
Comprehension 1) Receiver
Dimensions:
Children 6-
12 years
old, also
considered
“tweens”.
Also
targeting
their
parents
because
they are the
ones who
will do the
purchasing.
These
Families will
be targeted
in Southern
region
including
Orlando ,
Florida and
Austin
Texas
which was
named the
largest city
for ice
cream.
consumptio
n.
Yielding 3) Major
selling idea:
The co-
branded
breakfast
dessert
Haagen Dazs
“Cheerios Ice-
cream” is the
first of its kind
to combine
breakfast
cereal into a
tasty dessert.
There are
health benefits
of this new
treat and its all
at an
affordable
price.
Spokesman:
Haagen Dazs
Cheerios Ice-
cream will use
Jordan Speith,
the 2015
Masters Golf
Tournament
winner. He is
the 2nd
youngest
golfer to ever
win the
Masters at 21
years old.
Jordan Speith
was born and
raised in the
city of Dallas
Texas,
Cheerios Ice
cream target
audience, and
attended the
University of
Texas for two
years before
going pro (1).
He is a role
model and
Hometown
hero and will
grab the
attention of
anyone from
Texas. Jordan
Speith’s
sponsorship
will create a lot
of buzz and
attention.
Retention 5)Retention:
In order to
gain
retention,
Cheerios
and Haagen
Dazs will
collectively
utilize their
pages to
pass out
coupons
digitally as
well as on
the product
website.
Behavior 6) Desired
Behavior:
A loyalty
program will
also be
created and
live on the
product
website with
links to it
posted
through
social media
like
Facebook.
Section A6:The following sections of this integrated marketing communications plan will explain in
detail the different promotional mixes that will be used throughout the campaign. The
promotional mixes involved are advertising, direct marketing, digital/internet marketing, sales
promotions, publicity, and personal selling. Each section will help understand the efforts that will
be made through this particular campaign.
Section B focuses on advertising, which includes any paid form of nonpersonal selling,
which can be delivered through different vehicles and platforms. The current use of advertising
will be shown and the modifications will be discussed. Advertisements will be changed to
promote the new Cheerios product. Relevant communications objectives retrieved from the
Promotions Strategies Summary (PSS) will be used. Each objective’s strategy will be explained.
The Tools/Vehicle Section & Testing Plan will also be discussed for the advertisements used.
(TVSTP)
Section C focuses on the direct marketing overview and summarizes the plan that will be
implemented. Direct marketing is communication with target customers to generate response or
transactions (Belch, 2011). Similar to the previous section it will show the current efforts
Cheerios makes through direct marketing and the vehicles used for this process. Future plans
or modifications will then be explained with specific examples. Relevant Communications
Objectives will be stated and the strategy will be explained for each one. Along with this
information will be a TVSTP.
Section D will discuss current use of Interactive/Internet Promotions (IIP). Interactive
media allows two-way communication between the seller and the buyer. “Users can participate
in and modify the form and content of the information they receive in real time” (Belch, 2011).
The current tools used for this type of digital promotion, which includes social media, will be
shown and discussion of preservation or modifications will be clarified. Communications
Objective and strategy for each will also be used in this section. Another TVSTP for this topic
will be discussed.
Section E discusses sales promotions, which are marketing activities that offer extra
value or incentives to the sales force, the distributors, or the ultimate consumer, which can
stimulate immediate sales. Sales promotions focus on consumer and trade activities. We will be
focusing on consumer-oriented activities. This section follows the same requirements as the
sections stated above, but for sale promotion strategies. Section F includes two subjections that deal with Public Relations and publicity
summaries and overviews. Both section F.a. and F.b. includes the current use of Cheerios
efforts in either public relations or publicity. Publicity is nonpersonal communication that is not
paid for. Public relations manages public attitude of the company or product by executing a
program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance. These sections will follow the
same requirements as the sections stated above, but for their own specific topics.
Section G discusses personal selling, which is “a form of person-to-person
communication when the seller attempts to assist or persuade prospective buyers to purchase
the company’s product or service or to act on an idea” (Belch, 2011). Current personal selling
uses will be shown and potentially modified. This section is the last to follow the same
requirements that are stated above.
Section H is the Vehicles/Tools Plan Summary, which will explain the reasoning in
choosing specific vehicles/tools for reaching the targeted audience. Section I is the Budge
Allocation Plan, which will provide a rationale of how the budget will be developed for each
Promotion Mix element. The IMCP will conclude with an appendix and reference list.
SECTION B Advertising Overview & Plan Summary
Introduced to the market back in 1941 as “Cheerioats” by General Mills, the cereal
caused a stir for being one of a kind in its industry and was immediately taken to by the public.
Back in the Civil War era, one of the main health problems was that Americans seemed to be
suffering from dyspepsia likely to be caused by a high protein diet in which they weren’t getting
enough fiber (Upton, 2013). This caused doctors across America to try and modify people’s
eating habits and get the nation into a healthier lifestyle, which was a continued objective of
General Mills, since breakfast is the most important meal of the deal, hearty and healthy cereal
with an oat base had yet to enter the breakfast market. In 1941, Cheerioats was introduced to
the industry as a “ready to eat” cereal, its name emphasized the main ingredient of oats to
ingredient-brand and separate it from its competition. Being changed from “Cheerioats” to
“Cheerios” in 1945, the cereal has had a strong presence in the advertising and marketing realm
since day one (Upton, 2013).
1. Cheerios has always been known to cause a lot of buzz with their innovative
and effective advertising decisions. With their most popular cereal being HoneyNut Cheerios,
the brand has effectively grabbed America’s attention with each commercial and campaign they
pursue through establishing and evoking an emotional connection with their target audience
(Upton, 2013). The brand focuses on the strong connection of families and spreading love in
each commercial, through aiming on the simplicity of family coming together over breakfast and
starting their days with HoneyNut Cheerios.
Their most recent and most buzzed about ad, “Gracie”, was featured in the 2014
Super Bowl. It tells the story of an interracial family which apparently is “uncommon in
commercials today, especially in ads on TV, at a time when interracial and interethnic couples
are on the rise in real life, according to 2010 U.S. Census data, brand strategists and marketing
consultants” (Italie, 2013). Using the emotional appeal of a regular, everyday family who are
joined in the kitchen with mutual liking of Cheerios for breakfast, communicates the family’s love
for Cheerios.
The whole premise of the commercial is completely normal; it showcases a
pregnant mom in the kitchen while the African American dad talks to their young daughter at the
table and tries to explain to her through Cheerios that there will be another little “O” in the family
soon. The black-white mixed family first generated feedback so negative that General Mills had
to take off the commenting option on their YouTube channel on the ad. Big corporations don’t
like taking risks like so, preferring to stick to the safe side of advertising. But Cheerios didn’t see
anything wrong with the family—it was a completely normal scenario for them to portray.
"Advertisers for many years always took the safe route, which was to try to ruffle no feathers
and in doing so became less and less authentic and real," [Allen Adamson] said. "To succeed
today, big brands like Cheerios need to be in touch with what's authentic and true about
American families." (Italie, 2013). Although the feedback was extremely negative at first, it
ended up turning completely positive and overwhelmingly supportive for Cheerios. The
controversy turned out to be extremely beneficial and outweighed the negative, for the ad
generated over 5 million views on YouTube and received comments and reviews regarding
America’s love for the family and the connection they mutually feel with Cheerios.
Other successful advertising Cheerios has been praised for also deal with
controversial but real, raw matters America faces. One is the same-sex adoption, as told in the
“Cheerios Effect” campaign series of ads (https://cheerioseffect.ca), and another in the “3rd Shift”
commercials, which tells the story of family who seems to be going through hardship for the
father has to work “the third shift again” to be able to provide for his family. HoneyNut Cheerios
also highlights fun and upbeat commercials for kids such as Buzz the Bee in dance-offs with
celebrities like Usher and Nelly.
We plan to stick with Cheerios’ current strategy of pushing the barriers of
advertising. The amount of buzz the brand can generate from just one 30-second TV ad alone is
something that other companies aspire to achieve. Being one of the top brands in the cereal
industry, Cheerios and HoneyNut Cheerios have already found their target market of families—
of all race, sizes, ages, etc. (Schultz, 2014). The brand’s current advertising can effectively hit
parents and kids in the same way in the same 30-second commercial and is hard to do.
Cheerios also properly utilizes social media to their advantage, for they make sure all their
advertisements are streaming on each of their social media accounts so they offer all types of
exposure. To communicate our message, we plan to modify Cheerios’ current commercials with
all types of families who enjoy Cheerios for breakfast, by showcasing our new major selling idea
of “desserting breakfast” and our new product—a frozen yogurt type of Cheerios food for
breakfast. With our new product, we are opening up Cheerios into a new market of being able to
grant every kid’s wish of having dessert for breakfast all while being healthy and happy.
The other form of advertising being used in this campaign is going to be print
advertisements in the magazine of Real Simple. This magazine is known to be one of the top
magazines for women, so it’s perfect in attracting the attention of the mothers of our target
market. These print advertisements will be fluid with the rest of our advertisements and correlate
with our television commercials. So we would incorporate something like a still shot of our
mixed-race family sitting at the breakfast table about to eat their “desserting breakfast” Cheerio-
infused healthy breakfast dessert. Our print advertisements will be initiating the Interest step of
AIDA, for its creating interest among 70%of our Dallas target market.
Cheerios current print advertisements correlate to their commercial
advertisements also. They are still pictures of a TV ad, or just a picture of Cheerios themselves
taking over the page. They incorporate Cheerios’ health benefits and idea of keeping a close-
knit family together over breakfast. We plan on basically doing the same thing but instead
incorporate more of our major selling idea in our print, that again, correlates directly back to our
television advertisements.
2. We are utilizing our commercials in the Attention step of AIDA, and in doing so
our objectives of creating this attention among 90% of our Dallas, Texas target market. Since
commercials are an important factor already being used by Cheerios advertising plan, we intend
on integrating the commercials throughout our entire campaign, one of which you can find in the
Desire step of AIDA with our print ads. The print advertisements we are creating for the
magazine Real Simple, will correlate back to the commercials on TV so you can see the fluidity
of our campaign with our major selling idea of “desserting breakfast”.
3. We fully back up Cheerios’ current plan of utilizing the pull strategy in
advertising. All of their ads are pulling the customers to be a part of Cheerios while their
commercials evoke emotion and together-ness of families. The current being Buzz the Bee
revamping Honeynut Cheerios, incorporating popular artists like Usher and Nelly and utilizing
hashtags like #MustbetheHoney & #BuzztheBee pulling customers into the website and onto
social media to follow Buzz the Bee and to go out and buy Honeynut Cheerios. These current
commercials are helpful for they created a buzz in Cheerios’ advertisements. Although we are
not using Buzz as our spokesperson, he still is the mascot of HoneyNut Cheerios so we will
definitely still be incorporating him in our advertising efforts, but Jordan Spieth will be our new
spokesperson for Cheerios’ “desserting breakfast”.
The model we are using in our integrated marketing communications plan is
through the customer response model AIDA: attention, interest, desire and action. Through the
following product introduction, we plan to create the attention for our product in the infant spring
months of April to June. First, we will introduce our new product in early April/end of winter as in
“desserting the winter” and coming into the summer with the new frozen dessert for breakfast.
Targets can start sampling the dessert before summer. “Frozen dairy production follows a clear
seasonal pattern. Summer is the unchallenged season for eating ice cream and other related
products. Production kicks up in March and April to fill retail and foodservice pipelines in the late
spring and early summer. June is the highest production month of the year, but production
remains strong through August to satisfy summer demand. Production declines through the end
of the year.” (IDFA, 2015). We then plan on creating interest for our product after we get the
sampling ended, hopefully causing buzz by mid-March to May. The desire will then pick up in
the blooming summer months until about September, which then will ignite the action to come
after the release of Cheerio’s frozen breakfast, no later than mid-summer.
4. For our new wave of advertisements, we plan on utilizing and appealing to our
two target markets of moms buying for their families (mid-twenties—forties) and their children
(ages 6-12). According to two separate websites, Real Simple and People Magazine are two of
the top magazines that women prefer to read and live by (All You Can Read, 2015). Both being
owned by Time Inc,, we plan on utilizing print advertisements in these two magazines in order to
hit our first target market. As for advertising to children, we plan on using Disney Channel as our
main outlet for commercial advertising. In recent studies, it was shown that Disney beat out
Nickelodean in views for the past several months (Kondolojy, 2015). We plan on utilizing both of
these outlets while using the AIDA model in hopes of grabbing the attention, interest, desire and
later creating action for going out and purchasing our new product. Through advertising
on Disney Channel and in print magazines like Real Simple, we will perform pretests and
posttests in order to properly diagnose the effectiveness of our advertising techniques. For our
TV commercials, we will test the engagement as an effect of our commercial, as well as monitor
Disney and sales of our product. There’s about a 200,000 monthly viewership on Disney
Channel, so again, there will be a reach of about 90% of the monthly viewers. The main focus in
advertising on Disney Channel is to hit our sub-target market of children, ages six through 12.
They can see our commercials and later ask their moms to go out and buy the breakfast-dessert
for them. Also, Disney Channel only advertises healthy and nutritional products on their
network, thus making Cheerios’ new breakfast-dessert perfect for this channel and advertising
because we are a healthy, new food for families.
For testing the effectiveness of our print advertisements in Real Simple, we will
be reaching about 70% of the monthly subscribers of the magazine, which is around 400,000.
We will be evaluating customer responses to our product as well are evaluate change in
customer interest rate. We will also conduct testing in view-through rate and PR exposure time
of alternative articles, as well as evaluate change in customer interest rate for our new product.
For both advertising tactics of print and television ads, we will be using qualitative
and quantitative data, as well as keeping tabs on the Dallas convenience and supermarket
stores selling the Real Simple magazines we’re advertising in. Refer to Appendix A for more
information on the tools/vehicle selection testing utilized.
SECTION C Direct Marketing Overview & Plan Summary
For products such as Cheerios, the vast majority of sales are from in-store purchases.
Direct Marketing is not utilized frequently. However, Direct Marketing is still a prevalent tool in
our Integrated Marketing Campaign. We will use a combined promotion of Direct Mail and Direct
email. As stated in the textbook, the keys to a successful Direct Mail Marketing Campaign will
be in the mailing list (1). Since more money is spent by companies on Direct Mail than any other
budgeted marketing expense, it is imperative that financial resources are not wasted on a mail
recipient that is beyond our Target Market (1). We will utilize a Direct Email Delivery Method
method due to its effectiveness in immediately portraying the value of low cost products, such
as Honey Nut Cheerios Ice Cream or Frozen Yogurt (1). This strategy is a combined Promotion
that provides a call to action which appeals to the traffic on the Honey Nut Cheerios Website.
The Direct Email Campaign will be a subscription based service.
By sending Direct mail, we are attempting to appeal to roughly 30-40% of the recipients,
and ultimately see in-store purchases increase as a result. Our catalogue advertisements are
intended for two purposes. One purpose is to encourage the readers/viewers of the
advertisement to purchase more Cheerios. The other ulterior benefit is to spread awareness for
the new product offering (1). The Email Subscription that will be on the Honey Nut Cheerios
digital platform will encourage users to buy the new product by incentivizing the advertisement
with link to a coupon code. The objective is to encourage users to buy and taste the new
product as a result of seeing the Mail or Email. This will increase sales figures and attract
publicity (1).
Our strategy for retaining feedback on the success of each Direct Marketing Tool will be
simple to find because each interaction from the customer will generate a direct response (1).
By quantifying the number of clicks, calls, or purchases that the Direct Mail or Email Campaign
lead to, Honey Nut Cheerios will then be able to make an evaluation of the Cost Per order (1).
By implementing a strategy of collecting the data on how effective the mail or emails are, Honey
Nut Cheerios can also evaluate the quality of the content and the behavioral responses of our
Target Market (1).
The first column addresses the Vehicles of Direct Marketing we will use. The Direct
Email and Mail Campaign will be a combined promotion. The first column addresses each
promotion. The second column identifies the location of the new product offering and of how
many stores the new product will be in: the city is Dallas, Texas, and the amount of stores we
will be targeting is 12% of the 434 grocery stores located ithere, which are roughly 50 stores (4).
The third column uses this number of store to find a general quantity of Target Rating Points for
three months, which is approximately 720 (4). The Final two columns include the pretest
evaluation and posttest evaluation: Each addresses the objective for finding the quantitative
data, and the methods of applying it to qualitative data in order to make conclusions about the
success of the new product (4).
Promotional Tools/Vehicles & Characteristics, i.e., Advantages
& planned mgmt
of Disadvantages
(See
IMCP1/Promo
Strat Sumry &
p. 367/text)
Geographical Markets(See
IMCP2/CDI
& BDI
Comparison
)
Target Rating Points/TRPs Rationale(Include
assumption
s &
references
on last page
of this
IMCP5)
Cume/Cumulative Target Rating Points/TRPs(Reach % x
Frequency x
100 = TRP)
Testing Objective &Pretest Method(See Ch. 18 &
Ch. 18 slides
posted in Main
Page
Handouts)
Testing Objective &Posttest Method(See Ch. 18
& my Ch. 18
slides
posted in
Main Page
Handouts)
Direct Email and
Mail campaign
that will provide
information about
the product and a
link to the
Cheerios Website
(2)
Customers can
click on the email
and go to the site
then receive a
coupon/rebate if
they subscribe to
Cheerios Email
Online platform
encourages
Dallas, TX50 stores
with product
out of the
443 stores
in Dallas
(2).
Daily Website Viewers:12000 (4)
Reach: 60%
(Promotiona
l Strategy
Summary)
of daily
viewers
Frequency: 3 months of
promotion,
1 new
website ad
per week or
1 ad/wk x 4
wks/mo x
3 mos = 12
exposures
(frequency)
.6*12*100 = 720 TRPs (for 3 months)
Objectives:a. Evaluate
customer
response to
Subscription,
examine
online web
traffic
b. Evaluate
change in
customer
interest rate
for new
product
offerings
Methods:In 30 groups
Objectives:a. Test
View-
through rate
& PR
exposure
time of
alternative
online
articles
b. Evaluate
change in
customer
interest rate
for new
product
offerings
customer
interaction
Low Maintenance
Low cost
Updated regularly
based on
effectiveness and
current Marketing
Strategy (3)
of 3, at any of
the 50 store
locations test
alternative
approach
concepts. Use
Comprehensio
n and
Reaction Test,
Customer
Surveys.
Outputs:Qualitative
data (from
Reaction/Com
prehension
Test) &
quantitative
data
(Customer
Surveys) to
evaluate the
change in
Interest and
initial
consumer
reaction to
product
Methods:In each
group record
Tracking
Studies,
Recognition
Test, and
Test
Marketing
Outputs:Qualitative
data (from
Recognition
Test, Test
Marketing) &
quantitative
data
(Tracking
Studies) to
evaluate the
change in
Interest and
initial
consumer
reaction to
product
References:
1. Advertising and Promotion , by G. Belch, and M. Belch – page 481 through 487
2. http://www.yellowpages.com/dallas-tx/grocery-stores
3. http://www.cheerios.com/
4. http://cheerios.com.statstool.com/
SECTION D Digital/Internet Promotions Overview & Plan Summary
In terms of Internet promotions, Cheerios currently doesn’t have much in place. On the
Cheerios website they have a coupons & promotions page that allows you to print coupons
directly from the page. Other vehicles that they use other than their website is social media, and
more specifically, Facebook and Twitter. Cheerios posts on Facebook roughly three to four
times a week, and these posts range from promoting new products to online video advertising.
On twitter, Cheerios posts roughly three times a week. These posts are similar to Facebook and
are usually just a creative picture of cheerios with an original caption. They also “retweet” what
their consumers are saying about them if it’s positive. We plan to retain Cheerios current
interactive campaign, however make sure they are all consistent with one another (integrated).
With our new product idea, we plan on promoting it on all three vehicles (product website,
Facebook, twitter) very consistently and with purpose. The posts will mostly be pictures and
slogans to create interest and desire for the product.
Our Interactive/Internet Promotions fall under the interest customer response step. The
communications objective for the interest step is to create interest for our new product offering
among 70% of the target audience. Our target audience is now more targeted than before
because we are opening up to a new/narrowed market by expanding from breakfast foods
cereals to dessert’s ice creams.
Our communications objective for our social media campaign and product website
advertising is to create interest in 70% of our target audience. Our strategy with these three
vehicles is to correlate what we post and make sure everything is consistent, related, and
relevant. The social media campaign is designed to attract our target market to the excitement
of our new product. To launch our campaign we feel the best way is to post a flashy and
attractive picture of our product to catch people’s attention. Our dessert breakfast is something
unseen or unheard of, but a product that should create buzz. Once we have people interested in
our product we can start posting more informational pieces, however continuing to expose the
picture of the product because that’s its best selling point (it looks and sounds delicious). In
terms of frequency, we plan on posting on Facebook and Twitter 1 time per 2 days, for 4
months. That’s a total of 60 posts about the new product. As far as the Cheerios website, we
are planning to display a new advertisement once every week for that same four months. This is
a total of 16 frequencies. We feel that our social media campaign, combined with product
website articles and pages dedicated to the new product, will established a stable enough base
on the digital end to move customers from just being intrigued by the new product, but actually
desiring it and seeking it.
The first promotional tool/vehicle for digital/internet advertising is the product website.
The product website will advertise the new dessert product in an appealing display to introduce
the product. There are many advantages with this vehicle. It creates buzz and interest, and it
will be the first thing the website viewer sees. It also reaches a wide audience at all hours of the
day. We can easily control what the customer sees (content and context) and how they perceive
it. It also allows for communication with consumers and has interactive capabilities.
Disadvantages include: no face-to-face communication, a potential for deception, and clutter.
We plan to solve these disadvantages by supplementing this vehicle with our second vehicle:
social media. Our geographical market is Dallas, TX and we want to reach 70% of our target
audience. Our frequency with this vehicle is 16 because we are posting once per week for 4
months. This results in total TRPs of 1120 (.70 * 16 * 100). In terms of our testing objective and
pretest method, our objective is to evaluate our customer’s response to approach and major
selling idea. We also want to evaluate a change in our customer’s interest for the new product.
We will achieve this by exposing alternative ad concepts to consumers with characteristics of
our target audience. We will also hold five focus groups of 50 people in a computer lab where
ads can be inserted onto a dummy website with some of the well-proven ads for Cheerios. Then
we can compare our results from the proven ads and the test ads. Post test, we want to test the
view-through rate and advertising exposure time. We will again hold five focus groups of 50
people all in one grocery store in Dallas using recall tests and persuasion tests.
Our second vehicle/tool is social media (Facebook and Twitter). I consider this one
vehicle because we will be posting the same messages on both channels. We need to use both
because we will reach a wider audience, however we won’t be posting differently across the
two. Advantages to Facebook and Twitter include: they reach a large audience, great
communication tool, connects us with community, we can control the content and context of
message, and it will drive traffic to our website. Disadvantages include: it might be challenging
to connect with target audience at the right time, and we can’t control who exactly receives
these posts. We again want to reach 70% of our target audience, and will post a total of 60
frequencies (1 post every other day for 4 months). This gives us a TRP of 4,200. Our objective
pretest is to evaluate our follower’s responses to Facebook postings. We will also test the
change in product interest rate. We will use 10 focus groups of 20 people and survey everyone
about the new product offering in a lab. We will also try physiological measures with our online
promotions. Our data will be qualitative when evaluating survey results and physiological
measures. Our posttest objective is to attract people to the product website. We will add links to
the product website and analyze how many clicks it gets, as well as perform recall tests on our
focus groups. Our output will be quantitative in evaluating clicks, however quantitative in the
recall tests.
SECTION E Sales Promotions Overview & Plan Summary
General Mills current use of sales promotions is mainly focused on the usage of coupons
and the creative ideas behind them. Right now, there is a promotion going on for Cheerios sold
in grocery stores, convenient stores and superstores where a consumer can save 50 cents on
each box of Cheerios they buy. Cheerios also uses the hashtag #SendDadCheerios on Fathers
day, so families can take the time to participate in this thank you. “It’s for the Dad who would do
anything or go anywhere just to be with his kids.” This sales promotion focus on the father
aspect and how Cheerios brings the family together and acknowledges those who are doing a
fantastic job of that. Also, on the back of some of the boxes and definitely the website are crafts
you can use Cheerios for and recipes that require Cheerios. This way, the corporation can
target the consumers with things they can make it they purchase the product. These are just a
few of their sales-incentives. Another big promotion Cheerios is using presently is the Family
Breakfast Project, which encourages families to connect over breakfast. Some see it as the
most important meal of the day and that’s something Cheerios is trying to emphasize with this
campaign. “Breakfast is more than a meal.” Cheerios uses their social media pages in order to
get consumers involved in this and also to draw people into the promotions they have at the
time. In order to receive certain promotions, the consumer has to be connected to either the
Facebook or Pinterest page. This gives the consumer incentive to sign up for the social media
sites because it means that they can stay up-to-date with all of the corporations promotions and
messages, while also being one of the first people to know of the new products.
We intend on retaining several aspects of this SP campaign, such as the coupons and
recipe fixtures on the website, but we’re going to use different overall campaigns. The main
campaign we’re going to use in order to introduce our new product and attract traffic is a
guerrilla marketing campaign called “Desserting Breakfast.” This will be more of an interactive
campaign where ice cream trucks owned and operated by Cheerios drive around suburban
towns in Dallas, TX and offer up free samples of the new product. Our Honey-Nut Cheerios ice
cream bars (which will also be sold in 18 oz., but for sampling purposes) will be distributed to
those who approach the Cheerios truck free of charge to garner positive attention for the new
product. By using sampling, it can be left up to the consumers for how they see the new
product and it will pull the audience toward the product (the ice cream truck). We are also going
to be using the trucks as out-of-home advertisements. With the trucks dressed up in Cheerios
paint and a creative advertisement addressed on both sides of the truck, it will be a driving Ad.
For those who don’t stop to get ice cream, just seeing the truck itself may get the message
across and garner attention from those just watching.
The relevant communications objectives for our sales promotion strategies is to create
attention for the new product among 90% of our audience. The 90%, will be for those who see
the trucks (out-of-home advertisements), hear about them through word-of-mouth or follow up
on our social media sites in order to learn more about the new product, the campaign of both.
As for the sampling, in order to generate interest, the consumers must enjoy the product or
become interested by the concept of it. Asking 90% of the audience to try the new product
would be far too high and that’s expecting a lot from even our audience. By targeting about
30% for our sampling that should be an effective sales promotions objective for the new
product. It is based off how many people will actually ask for a sampling and the longer the
truck is around, say a month or six weeks, people may be more inclined to ask for a sample with
the product and campaign becoming more and more well-known. This campaign may also
encourage a viral video to stem from it to gain traction and overall attention of the product itself.
For the trucks, they will be hitting the suburbs of Dallas by April 1, 2015 and will stay there for a
full two months and head out of town by June 1, 2015. With the spring months upon us and the
winter behind, it’s a smart tactic to introduce the product a few months before the summer
months begin. The intention is to transition into the summer months with the new frozen dessert
and targets can begin sampling the dessert well before the summer, so by mid-summer
consumers are getting used to it and start to desire the product. The sampling and out-of-home
promotions will be introduced at the same time due to their objectives being attached to one
another. Once we introduce the trucks, we will also be introducing the samples that are handed
out from approaching the Cheerios ice cream truck and engaging in a learning and tasting of the
new product being introduced to the dessert market. The audience we have chosen to target
already have a brand loyalty to Cheerios for the most part and we expect the majority to explore
the Cheerios dessert option, as if it were a new breakfast cereal. Cheerios has always been
known to bring the family to the family table for breakfast and now we are bringing dessert to
our same audience. The intention is to have families start their day off with Cheerios breakfast
cereal and end their day with a Honey-Nut Cheerio frozen dessert, both alongside their family.
By creating attention in our target market of the southern United States, more specifically
in this case Dallas, TX, with our out-of-home advertisements, consumers will be caught in a
childhood memory. Through using old ice cream trucks, they will hopefully establish emotional
appeal due to the childhood memories of getting ice cream from the ice cream truck come the
warmer months of the year. Cheerios goes way back and has established itself as an American
staple in the breakfast world, while ice cream trucks have established themselves as staples in
the American summer. Haagen-Dazs (a General Mills owned ice cream brand) and Cheerio ice
cream will be tagged up on the sides of each of the three trucks with a creative/visually
appealing advertisements to engage the audiences toward the beginning. By targeting the
parents memories alongside the children’s constant desire for ice cream, this tactic will prove to
be very successful and the moving out-of-home Ads will play a humongous role in
accomplishing that. The more eyes on the trucks, the better. This leads into the second
strategy, the sampling, which will hopefully interest the target audiences and intrigue them to
take a free sample and try the frozen treat. Of course, not every person who approaches the
truck or see’s it will be willing to test out the new product, but for those who do, hopefully they
end up enjoying it enough to desire more. These samples will lead these specific consumer to
the stores where they’ll be sold and if all goes well, they will end up investing in Cheerios new
frozen treats. There are more steps to the AIDA model, but for this sales promotions campaign,
we are focusing on attention with the ice cream trucks and interest with free samples.
In order to test whether or not the vehicles are effective selections, social media will be
designed to pull the target audience toward the digital/internet platforms in order to promote the
product and for the consumers interested to learn more about the campaign and journey behind
the desserting of a popular breakfast. On the social media platforms, interested consumers will
be able to find the coupons and recipes from General Mills previous sales promotion strategies.
Teaming those up with information and interactive opportunities on the website/social media
sites, those who were unable to experience the guerrilla marketing campaign first-hand will now
be able to check up on it and engage that way. Creating strong awareness and continuous
brand loyalty will establish Cheerios’ new product as a staple in the already well-acquainted
audience.
SECTION F PR, Publicity Overview & Plan SummarySection F. a. - PR Overview & Plan SummaryCheerios Current PR Strategy
Cheerios current promotional strategies utilize a traditional marketing campaign that
relies heavily on traditional media as well as digital/internet media. Public relations, advertising,
and personal selling were implemented indirectly, but their public relations has relied heavily on
digital/internet marketing and publicity. In 2012, Cheerios attempted to gain brand loyalty by
presenting fans with a Facebook app that allowed them to write about “what Cheerios means to
me” in the cereal’s trademark font. But the plan backfired, as many Facebook users did not
approve of General Mills’ use of genetically modified foods (GMOs). Cheerios PR team reacted
quickly by launching a press release to NBC News. The press release stated how Cheerios will
no longer use GMOs in order to correct their public image and reputation with the public. In the
end, Cheerios managed to save their image and develop brand loyalty by listening to the
consumers demand.
Cheerios latest PR tactic was in February of 2015. They attempted to appeal to a wider
range of consumers by offering 5 new gluten-free products. They informed the public of this
move by sending a press release out that was published by Foodnavigator-usa.com and was
made available on the product website. They utilized a pull strategy that used digital publicity as
a way of appealing to more customers.
Cheerios will use the same strategy by sending out a press release announcing the
release of the new product. Cheerios will make this press release available on the product
website as well but ill utilize new feature on the website called the “News Room”. The News
Room will be used to archive all of the positive PR being sent out inorder for consumers to view
more easily.
PR Communication ObjectivesThe relevant communication for public relations will happen in the Desire step of our
AIDA model. In our promotions strategy Summary, found in section A, the objective is to create
desire among 70% of consumers who visit the Cheerios Ice-cream Breakfast product website.
We will do this by archiving all of the positive publicity, including published articles and Press
Releases, to the Cheerios Ice-cream Breakfast “News Room” web page. Giving our site visitors
access to archived press releases will build market excitement and spark buzz for future
publicity. A combination of a public relations press release and digital public relations News
Room posting will spark desire in prospective customers for the new product. Both vehicles will
pull our loyal Cheerios consumers and Ice-cream lovers to follow the campaign.
PR Communications Objectives in Detail
In order to create this desire of our new Cheerios Ice-cream product and our “Desserting
Breakfast” Campaign, we are going to develop a press release at the beginning of the
campaign. The content will then be archived in the News Room located on the Cheerios product
website. This press release will be the only one sent out and will build market excitement and
spark buzz for future publicity. In this press release, we will present the major selling idea within
the article by using a unique selling proposition that will give potential customers the product
benefits that are not offered by any other competitor. Offering the new product and idea of being
able to have “dessert” for breakfast. By capitalizing on brand and crowd favorite Cheerios’ sweet
honey nut taste and teaming up with other General Mills brand of Haagen-Dasz ice cream—we
are able to offer a “frozen yogurt” breakfast food as we Dessert Breakfast.
Tools/Vehicles SelectionNews Room linked on product website- Desire (Refer to Appendix B, Figure 5)
The press release being archived in the Cheerios News Room linked to the product
website will be our main promotional tool. The two biggest advantages to creating and archiving
a press release is that it’s cost effective and will provide a higher perceived level of credibility.
One potential disadvantage is that there is no guarantee for time and space in the media (Belch,
2012). The Cheerios News Room will overcome this by acting as a guaranteed location that the
press release can be accessed and viewed. The press release will be archived digitally through
the Cheerios News Room feature on the product website which will therefore be accessible to
anyone in the world. This unrestricted accessibility will create reach beyond our target
geographical market of the Dallas, TX region. We want as many Internet users to access our
News Room in hope of building knowledge among opinion leaders.
The current Cheerios website accumulates over 100,000 site visits per month. Our reach
objective is to create desire to 70% of the current website viewers. We are aiming to archive to
the News Room once per week over a 4-month period equating to a total of 16 exposures and
1,120 TRPs.
Our pre-test objectives are to analyze whether those who visit the product website are
visiting the News Room page. We will utilize Google Analytics in order to monitor and track the
website traffic. We will track statistics of the news Room webpage like clicks per minute on the
page and how many articles are accessed each visit. We will also apply a second method of
pre-testing by tracking the click through rate of the News Room. This will give us Quantitative
data regarding the website statistics to evaluate desire rate change.
Our post-test objectives are to analyze the effectiveness of the News Room archive
related to site visits and desire rate change. Posting a survey link on the Cheerios News Room
page will be our first method. The survey will ask consumers whether they found the News
Room useful, what their opinion is after reading archives, and if their opinions of the new
product and Cheerios has at all changed after reading archives. We will also track post click
conversions to see how many News Room viewers are clicking through to other Cheerios
website pages. Both methods will give us qualitative and quantitative data about consumers’
product opinion and purchase intention to evaluate desire rate change.
Section F. b. – Publicity Overview & Plan Summary
Cheerios Current Publicity Strategy Cheerios has relied heavily on publicity in their past and current marketing campaigns. In
particular, they utilize social media interaction to develop buzz. IN Cheerios latest campaign,
they implemented a commercial on Television showing a bi-racial family eating Cheerios
together. The campaign wanted to give the message that Cheerios is for everyone while also
giving the message of bringing the family together. This commercial created a ton of
controversy. And consequently created both positive and negative buzz about Cheerios. Their
strategy was to use this controversy to their benefit. They posted the commercial on their
YouTube channel and then made social media posts on Facebook and Twitter with the link to
the commercial on YouTube. They let their audience do the rest. This strategy generated a ton
of publicity while landing them on Reddit the next day and Buzzfeed a few days later. They then
aired a second biracial family commercial in the Superbowl 6 months later, which lead more
positive response second time around. By posting the commercial to Facebook and their social
media accounts, they were able to generate a great deal of publicity through digital social media
interaction.
Publicity Communications Objectives
The relevant communication objectives for publicity will happen in the interest step of our
AIDA model. In our Promotion Strategy Summary, found in Section A, the objective is to spark
interest among 70% of Cheerios Facebook page followers by posting press releases to
Facebook. The Cheerios Facebook page that posts the Press Release along with an inviting
and appealing picture of our ice cream product will be the main source creating the interest.
Facebook as the vehicle will pull our loyal Cheerios consumers and ice cream lovers to our new
product website, to become interested and continue to follow the campaign.
Publicity Communications Objectives in DetailIn order to spark this interest in our new Cheerios Ice-cream product and our “Desserting
Breakfast” Campaign, we are going to post the press releases about the new products release
will be sent out through Facebook page and will appear on the news feeds of all the people who
follow the Cheerios Facebook page and the Haagen-Dazs Facebook page. Cheerios’ Facebook
followers who “like” and “share” the Facebook post with their networks will spark interest to
prospective customers for the new product. We will present the major selling idea within the
article by using a unique selling proposition that will give potential customers the product
benefits that are not offered by any other competitor. Offering the new product and idea of being
able to have “dessert” for breakfast. By capitalizing on brand and crowd favorite Cheerios’ sweet
honey nut taste and teaming up with other General Mills brand of Haagen-Dasz ice cream—we
are able to offer a “frozen yogurt” breakfast food as we Dessert Breakfast.
Tools/Vehicles SectionPress Releases posted to Facebook - Interest (Refer to Appendix B, Figure 6)
Facebook will be our promotional tool in order to spread our content such as press
releases to our audience. Facebook is the ideal tool for publicity because of the large user base
and interaction the platform allows. Like Cheerios previous publicity strategies, we will post to
Facebook and let the audience spread the message through their networks. Facebook allows
users to “like” and “share” content through their personal Facebook networks, which will create
strong buzz for the new product. This not only lets the audience feel engaged but increases our
reach. Since Cheerios will have already created the press releases, posting them to Facebook
will not cost us anything. Since our strategy relies on the Facebook users to like and share
Cheerios PR content, the content will have a much higher perceived level of credibility (Belch,
2012). One disadvantage that Cheerios might have to possibly over come is that publicity can
be both positive and negative. We will not be able to control whether the publicity generated by
Facebook users is positive or negative. If the publicity remains positive, the new product will
gain a favorable buzz, reputation, and introduction into the new market.
As mentioned above, since our strategy will utilize digital publicity through facebook, our
reach will go beyond our target audience of the Dallas, TX region. Since publicity is a subset of
public relations, similar to our PR plan, we want as many Internet users to access our News
Room in hope of building knowledge among opinion leaders.
The current Cheerios Facebook page has 1,048,990 followers. We are trying to create
interest in 70% of these people. We are aiming to post press releases to the Cheerios Facebook
page once every two weeks over a 4-month period equating to a total of 8 exposures and 560
TRPs.
Our pre-test objectives for Facebook usage are to gauge the effectiveness of a Press
Release on the consumers’ opinion of Cheerios Ice cream. The second is to evaluate the
interest level of our Facebook followers before and after exposure to our posted content. We will
test for these by posting surveys to the Facebook page. The survey testing for Press release
effectiveness will ask about consumers’ current perception of Cheerios and Haagen-Dazs.
There will be a series of two surveys for monitoring interest rate. One distributed at the
beginning of the 4 month period and one distributed at the end. The first one will ask about
consumers’ interest levels in the new product and the second survey will ask the same question
in order to track the interest rate change. We will receive qualitative & quantitative (count the
number of interested viewers) data collected from the surveys that have been 100% completed.
Data will provide insight into whether the press release was successful in improving the
products reputation and if any interest has been sparked.
Our post-test objectives are to analyze the newly gained interest of the target audience
and their want to purchase the new Cheerios Ice cream. We will do this by sending a follow up
Survey by email to participants from 1st survey. The first survey will ask for respondents email
addresses. The survey will ask respondents how many press releases posts they saw, how
many they clicked on it, if they read through the whole press releases, whether press releases
made them interested in the product, and if their product interest has changed. We will receive
qualitative data and quantitative data that will be collected from surveys that have been 100%
completed. We will count the number of those who report they are interested and calculate the
percent change rate as result of the press releases. Data will also provide insight into whether
the consumers’ opinions have been affected, future purchase intentions.
SECTION G Personal Selling Overview & Plan Summary
Personal selling is the direct communication between the seller and customers. The
salesperson uses communication skills and tactics to promote the value of their product to the
potential customer. The customer finds value in the benefits and the salesperson finds value
through the financial rewards and relationships built. Personal selling is more focused in the
sales department, but makes a valuable contribution towards the promotional department
towards selling a product. Cheerios does not have personal vendors that sell directly to
everyday customers. It is possible for customers to seek out free samples from the Cheerios’
website, but it is not considered personal selling because the salesperson from Cheerios is not
reaching out to the customer. Cheerios’ products are typically bought in a store that sells their
product.
The best way that Cheerios distributes their products by personal selling now would be
by directly communicating with the resellers, which are stores that are potential leads or
prospects. The goal is to get valuable shelf space for the product in those stores. For the new
dessert cereal product, personal selling will remain the same but also be branched out further. It
is important that customers are able to find the product in local grocery stores and wholesale
stores. In order to get the product shelf space in these stores, salespeople of Cheerios must
directly contact and meet with managers and owners to create a relationship and promote the
product.
They will follow the basic guidelines for personal selling. First they will look for leads and
collect relevant information before they conduct a sales presentation.1 Presentations will be
directly targeted to resellers (Belch, 2011). When they complete the sales presentation, they will
address any questions or concerns the potential buyers may have (Belch, 2011). Through this
process they will assess the attitudes and attempt to finalize the sale (Belch, 2011). Once
questions are out of the way and the re-sellers agree to the sale they close the agreement
(Belch, 2011). After this process they will follow up and ensure everything goes as planned
(Belch, 2011).
Cheerios’ salespeople will target stores they already have connections with and new
stores in the geographical location that they want to build connections with. They will provide
free testimonials to make the targeted customers familiar with the product, in hopes of them
seeing the potential value it may bring to their store. They will also communicate information
and other benefits about the product and Cheerios. The salespeople will also offer the resellers
rewards or benefits for selling and promoting the product. The more that is sold out of the store,
the more rewards or bonuses the resellers will obtain from Cheerios.
Another form of personal selling that Cheerios will do is directly selling the product to
customers through the use of ice cream trucks/stands at targeted geographical locations. These
will be personal vendors that set up in a location with promotional displays and have customers
purchase the product right then and there. Those operating the trucks/stands will be
salespeople that are educated about the product and are capable of promoting the values of the
product to the customers. Even though this tactic is making profit, it will try to encourage buyers
to go to the resellers and purchase more of the product. This form of personal selling includes
other promotional mix elements such as guerilla marketing through nontraditional advertising,
direct marketing, and event publicity if local news outlets report on the events and locations that
the trucks/stands will be part of.
The AIDA customer response model is being used to plan the promotional strategy
summary. Personal selling will be implemented in the desire and action steps of the process.
The desire and action steps are both in the affective stages of selling, which mean they will
produce an effect on potential buyers. By giving information and testimonials to resellers and
customers, it will contribute to the desire to purchase the product for each of their own personal
needs. Stores will desire selling the Cheerios product in their stores to gain benefits. Personal
customers will desire purchasing the product for the valuable benefits promoted through
information and other promotional mixes, which includes nutritional value and flavor.
By giving free testimonials of the product, the hope is to push people to action to buy
more of the product. Personal selling to resellers should create the desire, which will lead to
them acting on purchasing. Closing the sale and keeping the connection is the goal of the AIDA
process with resellers. By selling or giving free testimonials to everyday people on the streets
through trucks/stands, should create desire to want more of the product. Since they would only
be trying a small portion, it should make them want to act on buying the product from the
resellers on their own. Personal selling like this may help with other promotional elements, such
as digital/interactive marketing. If the customers are happy with the product and the free
testimonials they may spread positive word of mouth about Cheerios brand and the product
itself.
To pretest the personal selling efforts we can conduct focus groups or surveys on how
they feel about receiving free testimonials from companies and if it effects their desire to want to
purchase. The objective is to see if the personal selling efforts will have a positive outcome or
not. Surveys sent through mail or online can be used. Meetings for research can also be
completed. Through these methods, quantitative data can be acquired to make decisions
whether or not free testimonials should be used in personal selling efforts.
Posttest methods of the personal selling after completed can be used to calculate the
successfulness of directly communicating with resellers and customers. The objectives are to
realize how to optimize the effectiveness of the personal selling and how it contributes with
brand equity. Tracking studies can be done to see how many resellers closed the sale with
Cheerios and how many people bought or received from trucks/stands. This helps gain
quantitative information. Diagnostic tests can be used for qualitative information to see how
customers feel about the product after purchasing through the use of personal selling efforts.
SECTION I IMC Budget Allocation Plan
Honey Nut Cheerios is a well established cereal with strong brand awareness and a loyal
customer base. The Honey Nut Cheerios Yogurt/Ice Cream is a frozen treat that appeals to
children but also maintains a nutritious standard that is inherently reflective of the Honey Nut
Cheerios brand.
Specifically, the target market is children ages 6 to 12, and adults ages 30 to 49. The city we are
drawing research from is Dallas, Texas. Given that this product is a frozen treat, sales will most
likely be stronger in locations with higher temperatures.There is a large difference between the
population of our target market in Austin and the population of our target market in Orlando.
Based on the sales of Honey Nut Cheerios globally, the Honey Nut Cheerios Ice Cream or
Frozen Yogurt product will be more popular in cities with a greater population of families, and
families with younger children. Once we calculate the percentage of the market we can feasibly
target in each location, we can then apply the amount of dollar sales to the population of each
city and generate a specific dollar sales estimate (Belch, 2011). Based on this data, we can
analyze how popular the frozen yogurt will be in each location (Belch, 2011).
SECTION J References Summary
All You Can Read. (2015). Top 10 women’s magazines. All You Can Read. Retrieved from
http://www.allyoucanread.com/top-10-womens-magazines/
Elliott, S. (2014). An American family returns to the table. The New York Times. Retrieved
from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/business/media/an- american-family-returns-to-
the-table.html?_r=1
George E. Belch & Michael A. Belch, Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing
Communications Perspective, Ninth Edition, McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2011.
ISBN 978-0-07-338109-1
GeneralMills.com
Horovitz, B. (2013). Hate won’t derail mixed-race Cheerios ad. USA Today. Retrieved from
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/06/03/cheerios- general-mills-
commercial-mixed-race-ad/2384587/
IDFA. (2015). Ice cream sales & trends. International Dairy Foods Association. Retrieved
from https://www.idfa.org/news-views/media-kits/ice-cream/ice-cream-sales- trends
Italie, L. (2013). Cheerios exec on ad featuring mixed race couple: 'we were reflecting An
American family'. Huffington Post. Retrieved from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/cheerios-ad-mixed-race-
couple_n_3390520.html
Ligtvoet, F. (2014). What’s wrong with Cheerios gay-adoption commericals. Huffington Post.
Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-ligtvoet/cheerios-gay- adoption-
commercial_b_5945906.html
Schultz, E.J. (2014). General Mills looks beyond TV to target ‘micro’ markets. Ad Age.
Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/digital/general-mills-tv-target-micro-
markets/292095/
Symonds, J. (2013). Two cheers for Cheerios. Ace Metrix. Retrieved from
http://www.acemetrix.com/news/blog/cheerios/
Takeda, A. (2014). Cheerios’ Super Bowl ad brings back interracial family from controversial
2013 commercial. US Magazine. Retrieved from
http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/cheerios-super-bowl-ad-brings-
back-interracial-family-from-controversial-2013-commercial-2014291
Upton, E.(2013). The origin of Cheerios. Today I Found Out. Retrieved from
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/08/the-origin-of-cheerios/
Wheaton, K. (2013). Turns on Americans love ‘controversial’ Cheerios ad. Ad Age.
Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/the-big-tent/turns-americans-love-
controversial-cheerios-ad/241869/
APPENDIX. IMCP Promotion Examples & Analyses AdvertisingAdvertisingOlivia Zacks Promotion Examples Strategy Analysis (IMCP7)Team #4
Company: General Mills, Cheerios
a. Customer target market: Customers consisting of mothers (mid-20’s—40’s) and
their young children of 6-12 years old.
b. b. Attention Step of AIDA
c. c. Communications objective is to create Attention for our new product offerings among
90% of our customer target market all while trying to pull target into local supermarkets and
convenience stores before/during/after purchasing and engaging in print advertisements in Time
Inc. magazines Real Simple and People Magazine (Interest of AIDA).
d. d. All of the Advertising vehicles in the Attention step of AIDA communicate the following.
1. Major Selling Idea Offering the new product and idea of being able to have “dessert” for
breakfast. By capitalizing on brand and crowd favorite Cheerios’ sweet honey nut taste and
teaming up with other General Mills brand of Haagen-Dazs ice cream—we are able to offer a
“frozen yogurt” breakfast food as we Dessert Breakfast.
2. MSI development approach: Positioning based on product quality and new-ness to
market.
3. Appeals: (Through an emotional appeal) Cheerios are heart-healthy, and good for your
cholesterol, which appeals to the parents of the family. Cheerios are also honey nut flavored
and would pair off well with vanilla frozen yogurt with swirls of dark chocolate for a new and
unique type of breakfast, which appeals to young kids in the sense that they’re able to have
dessert for breakfast.
a. The following Advertisement is retrieved from Honey Nut Cheerios’ website
b. http://www.cheerios.com/en/buzzthebee.aspx
A. Current example of promoting Buzz the Bee along with Honey Nut Cheerios cereal in
online advertisement—ours would be promoting our spokesperson Jordan Speith with Honey
Nut Cheerios deliciously desserting breakfast.
By incorporating Honey Nut Cheerios current mascot of Buzz the Bee while adding our new
spokesperson of Dallas’ own Masters winner Jordan Speith, and highlighting his role in the
cereal, it is appealing to children and to family’s, because we all know Buzz the Bee. The video
advertising brings in the music of pop favorites Usher and Ne-Yo, which utilizes popular culture.
The name of the commercial also pertains to all of the benefits of Honey Nut Cheerios—they’re
all natural and oats. The tagline of “Bee Happy. Bee Healthy.” Also incorporates Buzz and the
healthy aspect of Honey Nut Cheerios.
Although we’ll be utilizing advertising through magazine and TV; Cheerios online
advertisements on their website and their social media are beneficial as they are because they
generate many views. For our TV advertisements, we will follow similar protocol as the current
online commercials like mentioned above, so we will evoke emotion and cause attention to our
new line of commercials for our new product.
We plan on keeping Cheerios’ original advertising style and tactic in utilizing today’s
popular culture and their realness they devote their television commercials in portraying. With
our Major Selling Idea being of the unveiling of our new product of “desserting breakfast”, which
adds a new kind of spin to breakfast foods, it appeals to the young children who will be watching
our commercials on Disney Channel because what else is cooler to a 6-12 year old than being
able to eat dessert for breakfast with mom and dad?
For our print advertisements of our new product, we plan on taking the online ones down
to paper. By incorporating the hashtag (like mentioned in the example above), we are
incorporating social media to our target market of mothers who are in touch with social media
and depend heavily on the Internet and what they know.
Direct Marketing
Conor House-Myers Promotion Examples Strategy Analysis (IMCP7)
Team # 4
A. Analysis of June 2015 Cheerios Promotion
for Attention step of AIDA model
a. Company: Cheerios (General Mills)
Customer target market: Adults ages 23-45 in Orlando, CA
b. “Attention” step of Customer Response Model
c. Communications Objective is to create Attention for new product offerings
among 40% of target and pull target to Starbucks website to create Interest in
step 2 of AIDA.
d. All of the Direct Marketing vehicles in the Attention step of the AIDA
communicate the following.
e. Major Selling Idea: Top off your morning with a sweet, and healthy frozen treat
from Honey Nut Cheerios. Direct Email Campaign pushes the customer to use
the coupons.
f. MSI development approach: Positioning based on demographics, product, and
quality
g. Appeals: Affiliation, Emotional Appeal/Pleasure
h. The following Email Campaign is retrieved from the Honey Nut Cheerios website.
The “LEARN MORE” link takes the consumer to an email subscription.
Source: http://www.cheerios.com/ (accessed 2015)
A. Promotion?
Digital/Internet PromotionsBrett Egizi Promotion Examples Strategy Analysis (IMCP7) Team 4
A. Analysis of March-June 2015 Cheerios Honey Nut Ice Cream promotion for Interest Step of
AIDA Model
a. Company: Cheerios
Customer target market: Mothers and children in Dallas, TX
b. Interest step of AIDA
c. Communications objective is to create interest for new product offering among 70% of target.
d. Digital/Internet Advertising vehicles in the interest step of the AIDA communicate the
following. .
1. Major Selling Idea: Indulge yourself with a healthy and delicious cereal-turned ice cream
dessert. With Cheerios in ice cream (as a new product), we are now entering the dessert
market, selling to our audience that they can now enjoy their favorite cereal as a topping in your
dessert.
f. MSI development approach: Positioning the new product based on its attributes/ benefits and
problem solution- cheerios as a healthy dessert.
g. Appeals: Deliciousness, uniqueness, creativity
h. The following online advertisement is retrieved from the cheerios homepage.
A. http://www.cheerios.com/?Cheerios&gclid=CO2ZtITDisUCFccdgQodbwQAlg&gclsrc=aw.ds
Online AD: Cheerios to introduce a new cereal product that is packed with protein.
Cheerios is introducing a new product for health-conscious consumers, cheerios protein. The
product is advertised on the cheerios website in the above picture. Under the title, it describes
the product, which is packed with flavor and protein. Under the description is a link to more
information and promotions for the new product.
When doing our online advertising for our breakfast ice cream treat, we pretty much want to
emulate this ad. We’d definitely have a large picture of the ice cream bar on the left, and make
sure it looks delicious, not just another product in a wrapper. The title will be more appealing
than this one as well as we hope to catch the viewer’s eye. The text under the title will present
our major selling idea and a brief description of what we’re selling: Indulge yourself with a
healthy and delicious cereal-turned ice cream dessert. With Cheerios in ice cream (as a new
product), we are now entering the dessert market, selling to our audience that they can now
enjoy their favorite cereal as a topping in your dessert. Lastly, we want to also have a link that
will bring the viewer to a whole new page dedicated to the new product. This should create
consumer interest for the product.
B. Analysis of May-June 2015 Cheerios Honey Nut Ice Cream promotion for Interest Step of
AIDA Model
1. Company: Cheerios
Customer target market: Mothers and children in Dallas, TX
b. Interest step of AIDA
c. Communications objective is to create interest for new product offering among 70% of target.
d. Digital/Internet Advertising vehicles in the interest step of the AIDA communicate the
following. .
1. Major Selling Idea: Indulge yourself with a healthy and delicious cereal-turned ice cream
dessert. With Cheerios in ice cream (as a new product), we are now entering the dessert
market, selling to our audience that they can now enjoy their favorite cereal as a topping in your
dessert.
f. MSI development approach: Positioning the new product based on its attributes/ benefits and
problem solution- cheerios as a healthy dessert.
1. Appeals: Deliciousness, uniqueness, creativity
2. Following Interactive social media advertisement is retrieved from Cheerios’ Facebook
profile.
B. https://www.facebook.com/Cheerios?fref=ts
Facebook Post: Cheerios to launch new product “Nacho Cheesios”
Cheerios recently posted on Facebook to get people interested in their new product “Nacho
Cheesios”. This posting is what we want to base our social media campaign around for our ice
cream breakfast bar. Simply, yet appealing, the post gets people intrigued by asking “Ready for
the next big thing in breakfast”? And then revealing, “We’re exciting to announce Nacho
Cheesios!” The picture is very attractive as well. With our social media campaign, we want to
start by posting to our followers something very similar to this, but with a different picture of
course and some more information. This doesn’t really tell what exactly the product is… do they
taste like nacho cheese? Are there nachos in the cheerios? Do they still taste at all like
cheerios? It brings up questions. Our posts will be clear and show people exactly what the
product is and how delicious it is. We will probably add our major selling idea in our first
promotional Facebook post as well.
Public RelationsJustin Lavallee Digital/Internet Publicity Promotion Examples Strategy Analysis (IMCP7)
Team #4
a. Company: Cheerios/General Mills
Customer target market: Customers consisting of mothers (mid-20’s—40’s) and their young
children of 6-12 years old.
b. AIDA Model, Interest
c. Communications objective is to: Spark interest among 70% of Cheerios Facebook page
followers by posting press releases to Facebook. The Cheerios Facebook page that posts the
Press Release along with an inviting and appealing picture of our ice cream product will be the
main source creating the interest. Cheerios’ Facebook followers who “like” and “share” the
Facebook post with their networks will spark interest to prospective customers for the new
product. Facebook as the vehicle will pull our loyal Cheerios consumers and ice cream lovers to
our new product website, to become interested and continue to follow the campaign.
d. Publicity social media will communicate the following:
e. Major Selling Idea: Offering the new product and idea of being able to have “dessert” for
breakfast. By capitalizing on brand and crowd favorite Cheerios’ sweet honey nut taste and
teaming up with other General Mills brand of Haagen-Dazs ice cream—we are able to offer a
“frozen yogurt” breakfast food as we Dessert Breakfast.
f. MSI development approach: Positioning based on product quality, price, and newness to
market. Kids will be very excited with the concept of having dessert for their breakfast.
g. Appeals: Emotional appeal, imagery, the concept of kids getting to eat dessert for their
breakfast, both exciting for the kids and healthy for the parents approval.
h. The following publicity social media is retrieved from Cheerios Facebook page.
(On next page
A. The image below shows how the Press Release will utilize an appealing image of the
new product to draw interest to click and read the Press Release. We would use an image
of the new product and show an example of an excited child enjoying it.
Sales PromotionsA. Analysis of April-June 2015 Cheerios Honey Nut Ice Cream promotion for 2nd
step of AIDA model
a. Company: Cheerios (General Mills)
Customer target market: Adults ages 23-45 and kids aged 6-12 in Dallas, TX.
b. Interest: step of AIDA (All of the following is from the Promotions Strategies Summary/IMCP 1
template)
c. Communications objective is to create Attention for new product offerings among 90% of
target and pull target to receive coupons and pull target to seek coupons for new product,
and to create Interest in step 2 of AIDA.
d. All of the Sales Promotion vehicles in the Attention step of the AIDA communicate the
following.
1. Major Selling Idea: Desserting Breakfast, start your morning at the table with your family
and a heart healthy Honey Cheerios ice cream breakfast
(Jordan Speith (spokesperson) lures/pulls customers to website and stores for enjoyment &
product deals).
1. MSI development approach: positioning based on premium family product, quality and the
expanding market
2. Appeals: Emotional appeal/pleasure, affiliation, comfort, acceptance of rlow cost, curiosity
h. Following Coupons are retrieved from Cheerios Website. Use same type of example
for Cheerios Breakfast Ice Cream.
A. Sales Promotion: Coupons
ON NEXT PAGE…
Personal SellingAnnie Zinkus Promotion Examples Strategy Analysis (IMCP7)
Team 4
A. Analysis of June 2015 Cheerios’ Honey Nut Ice Cream promotion for Desire step of AIDA
model
a. Company: Cheerios/General Mills
Customer target market: Families located in Dallas, TX
b. Action step of AIDA
c. Communications objective is to create Desire for Cheerios new product among resellers and
customers to create Action in the final step of AIDA.
d. All of the Personal Selling vehicles in the Desire step of the AIDA communicate the following.
e. Major Selling Idea: Cheerios’ Honey Nut Ice Cream, enjoy your favorite breakfast for
dessert.
f. MSI development approach: Positioning based on premium product benefits & taste.
Have customers buy ice cream bar to get them to want to purchase ice cream pints from store
locations.
g. Appeals: Comfort food (emotional appeal), health/nutrition
h. The following Personal Selling is retrieved from LA Times news article reporting on the
promotional efforts of another brand. Cheerios’ will be completing this same type of action.
i. The second Personal Selling idea highlights the sales motives and qualifications that the
Cheerios’ representatives should have. These sales reps will be meeting with store locations to
sell the product to the resellers.
A. http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-ice-cream-tillamook-truck-20140415-
story.html
This is similar in the sense Tillamook is providing a product that they do not usually sell
from ice cream truck. The difference is that Cheerios’ will be selling rather than
sampling.
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