Kix Cereal Appeals to Moms with Online Stories, Punky Brewster

As break­fast cere­al con­sump­tion is report­ed­ly on the decline in the U.S., one brand is hop­ing to appeal to kids with online sto­ry­books and new box­es that can be used to cre­ate relat­ed char­ac­ters. And, as some cere­al brands lean on nos­tal­gia to reignite their fan...

Lisa Lacy By Lisa Lacy. Join the discussion » 0 comments

As break­fast cere­al con­sump­tion is report­ed­ly on the decline in the U.S., one brand is hop­ing to appeal to kids with online sto­ry­books and new box­es that can be used to cre­ate relat­ed char­ac­ters. And, as some cere­al brands lean on nos­tal­gia to reignite their fan bases, the brand in ques­tion, Kix, has also teamed up with a child star from the 1980s to per­haps also appeal to moms who grew up watch­ing “Punky Brew­ster”.


Cere­al brand Kix has launched new cere­al box­es with relat­ed online sto­ry con­tent and, as a result, it says it has teamed up with “Punky Brew­ster” actress Soleil Moon Frye to “help par­ents inspire learn­ing, imag­i­na­tion and break­fast-time fun.”

But, with reports emerg­ing that America’s love affair with break­fast cere­al may be over as con­sump­tion declines, this con­tent mar­ket­ing effort from Kix may also be to con­vince par­ents to recon­sid­er an old sta­ple.

In a press release, Kix says it wants “to offer fam­i­lies today even more rea­sons to enjoy this whole­some prod­uct from the inside out.” As a result, Kix says its new box­es “fea­ture unique pop-out char­ac­ters designed to be used with Kix Adven­tures online sto­ry­books to bring par­ent and child togeth­er through cre­ative play.”

By punch­ing out per­fo­rat­ed shapes from the box­es, Kix says kids can assem­ble char­ac­ters and objects. Accord­ing to the brand’s web­site, kids can make any­thing out of these pieces. Kix also encour­ages par­ents to “gath­er the fam­i­ly and check out the fol­low­ing how-tos and amaz­ing cre­ations to start build­ing togeth­er,” on its web­site.

The brand says par­ents will find nine Kix Adven­ture sto­ries here, includ­ing three writ­ten by Frye.

To start read­ing, users click go and choose a theme, includ­ing Jun­gle, Ocean or Wood­land adven­ture. These sto­ries, in turn, fea­ture dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters and are paired with vari­eties of Kix cere­al, like Orig­i­nal, Berry Berry, and Hon­ey.

Sto­ries are pre­sent­ed as slideshows with instruc­tions at the start about which box char­ac­ter to build and where to use said char­ac­ters through­out. The sto­ries also include tabs to share at the end.

In addi­tion, the new cere­al box­es are only avail­able at Tar­get.

While it remains to be seen whether this is enough to encour­age moms to rein­tro­duce break­fast cere­al in gen­er­al, and Kix in par­tic­u­lar, the Kix Adven­ture series is also rem­i­nis­cent of recent efforts from oth­er cere­al brands like Lucky Charms and Fruit Loops, which have made appeals to adults who grew up eat­ing the cere­al.

I do think that cere­al brands play up the nos­tal­gia aspect of the break­fast expe­ri­ence,” said Tes­sa Wegert, com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor at dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing agency Enlight­en. “It’s a per­fect way to high­light the place that their prod­ucts have with­in a house­hold and fam­i­ly.”

In addi­tion, Wegert notes cere­al brands have long embraced books as a way to con­nect with kids and their par­ents and to show sup­port of lit­er­a­cy. For exam­ple, Chee­rios has been run­ning a lit­er­a­cy pro­gram for 12 years that includes plac­ing books inside cere­al box­es and oth­er Gen­er­al Mills brands dis­trib­ute com­ic books, she says.

Kix Adven­tures and the new Kix pack­ag­ing encour­age read­ing while also cap­i­tal­iz­ing on online medi­a’s engag­ing fea­tures and capa­bil­i­ties,” Wegert said. “Read­ers get a mul­ti­me­dia expe­ri­ence, but it takes the cere­al box to make it tru­ly inter­ac­tive. The pro­gram is a smart way to incite pur­chas­es while also pro­vid­ing val­ue to the cus­tomer. It mod­ern­izes the quo­tid­i­an act of eat­ing cere­al for break­fast to appeal to a more dig­i­tal­ly inclined cus­tomer base.”

First intro­duced in 1937, Kix says it uses ingre­di­ents like whole grain corn to “make the cere­al that gen­er­a­tions lat­er, kids still love and moms still feel good about.” Kix is a Gen­er­al Mills brand.


What do you think about Kix’s use of online media? Is the inter­ac­tive ele­ment enough to con­vince par­ents to actu­al­ly buy the prod­uct?

Lisa Lacy

Written by Lisa Lacy

Lisa is a senior features writer for Inked. She also previously covered digital marketing for Incisive Media. Her background includes editorial positions at Dow Jones, the Financial Times, the Huffington Post, AOL, Amazon, Hearst, Martha Stewart Living and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

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