Wheaties
Project information
I worked on Wheaties for three years and in that time I was able to work across a variety of media. In a unique MarComm role, I directed multiple videos, created a beer, developed an iOS video game, oversaw our digital paid media, and helped develop strategy across all of our platforms.
HefeWheaties
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One of the major challenges on Wheaties was a consumer trend demonizing wheat. In trying to think of novel opportunities for the brand, I realized that the exploding craft beer market was a perfect place to play, given the millennial demographic and an absence of wheat aversion.
Fate intervened when I ran into an old roommate who happened to work at Fulton. We started talking about a collaboration and the rest is history. Fulton made an incredible beer, and with zero paid media, we managed 100+ million impressions, and perhaps most importantly, the final question spot on “Jeopardy!”
- Client : General Mills
- Date : 2013-2016
- Link : wheaties.com
- Trade : CPG
Grandpa Campaign
The grandpa campaign began as a small one-off idea, but grew into something much more.
In September 2014, my designer and I created a social media graphic to test consumer response. My thinking here was that we’d align Wheaties core consumer (boomers) with their up-and-coming target demo (millennials) with the same pieces of content. “Grandpa style” has become big in culture, from cafe racers to straight razors, and I wanted to flesh out that idea.
But more than anything, I wanted to tell stories about some amazing people. And we were lucky enough to do just that, as evidence by the video below featuring James C. Hawkins.
Champy the Lion Revival
When I started working at Wheaties, we were at the end of our fiscal, and access to athletes was minimal. In an effort to make content more relatable, I looked to get around this limitation.
While researching the brand, I stumbled across an old equity character, Champy the Lion. A precursor to Tony the Tiger, Champy had been all but forgot. But I felt that by refreshing the character and inserting him into pop culture, Wheaties would be able to expand both its relevance and, on a practical level, its ability to create content.
We began developing Champy-centric content that appealed to our millennial demo, and microtargeted paid media to be as effective as possible with our spends. Production costs were low and engagement metrics were very high.
Digital Content Streams
