justinlavalleeportfolio.weebly.com€¦ · Web viewIntegrated Marketing Communications Plan....

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…………………...……………………………...




Section D. Interactive and Internet Promotions Overview & Plan Summary……………...16

Current Interactive and Internet & Plan………………………………….................




Section E. Sales Promotions Overview & Plan Summary………………………………….21

Current Sales Promotions & Plan…………………………………………………..




Section F. PR and Publicity Overview & Plan Summary………………………………….26

Current Public Relations/Publicity & Plan…………………………………………



Tools and Vehicles/Testing Methods Selection………………………………….

Section G. Personal Selling Overview & Plan Summary…………………………………31

Current Sales Personal Selling & Plan……………………………………………..



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

Facebook

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

Email

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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