MARKETING LESSON FROM A CEREAL BOX
I was recently pressured into buying an extra large box of a particular cereal when shopping with my eight-year-old son.
Without mentioning any specific brand names, his favourite sport, and the promise of prizes related to said sport, was plastered all over the box – the reason he was so keen on getting this cereal into our trolley.
You could say at that point it was successful marketing as the pressure kids put on their parents in the supermarket can never be underestimated – something the marketing team was clearly well aware of.
Where it went off the rails was when it came to the process of actually entering the promotion.
To begin with, I had to download an app to my phone. The app took a while to load, after which I had to enter my name and email. Again, it was the pressure of my sport-mad son that made me do it – if he was not such a fanatic, we might well have just left it there.
Next, the cereal had to be removed from the box to access the codes that needed to be added to the app – at this point, my son had ripped the box to pieces to access the code and promised prizes. The codes are printed halfway down, so we essentially had to break open the box to read the long chains of numbers and letters and type them into the app. Oh yes, and of course, I had to stop and deal with the cereal mess before continuing.
Two codes did not work and needed inputting multiple times, to no avail. One code did work, but then we had to scan the box again, wait for an activity to load and complete a series of tasks related to the sport, all from my phone.
Anyway, at the end of all of this – 45 long and frustrating minutes later – we won a sticker… which we’ll receive in approximately four weeks and for which I had to follow another link to provide more contact details.
I can see the brainstorming process behind this activity – a marketing team sitting around a table, chiming in with ideas for the promotion until they reached this incredible and unique way to engage families with their brand.
To its credit, the activity was cute and clever, but, for me, it was onerous and annoying more than anything else – particularly as it didn’t work all that smoothly.
My frustration with the exercise led to explaining the marketing trick to my son and made me feel less than favourable towards this cereal brand, at least for the moment. We will likely give the brand a miss for now, and it’s safe to say my brand affection took a big hit.
The marketing intention behind this activity was good and overall clever – linking to a popular sport and engaging children to pressure their parents to purchase (which certainly worked in our case) while also giving kids positive brand associations.
Having said that, as a marketer, I learned one valuable lesson from the experience: always plot your user journey when planning a marketing exercise like this.
The JLCA marketing team was recently planning a similar brand engagement activity, and, reflecting on the cereal box experience, I put myself into the target audience's shoes - repeatedly going through the whole process with a stopwatch. It became immediately evident that, while the idea had theoretical merit, there were some real practical challenges in terms of the length of time it took for the engagement to take place. Ultimately, we trimmed the number of elements for the process to take no longer than 90 seconds. The result was a refined execution that wouldn’t lose the attention of the busy people it was intended for – while still being memorable.
When you are workshopping around a table, all the steps and add-ons, extra messages, clever activities and opportunities for data collection may sound like great ideas. But always remember who you want to engage and that THEIR attention span for your brand is far less than that of its marketing team. In other words, keep it simple – often, restraint is the key to success.
Original Author: Tara Mulholland revised by JLCA.
For more insights and ramblings on strategic business communications and marketing from JLCA Director John Le Cras, visit the JLCA Journal page.