Cheerios: Cheerio Challenge [image]

Credits & Description:

Title: Cheerio Challenge
Agency: Life Of Dad
Brand: General Mills
Country: USA
Entrant Company: Life Of Dad, Burbank
Advertising Agency: Life Of Dad, Burbank
Media Agency: Life Of Dad, Burbank
Pr Agency: Life Of Dad, Burbank
Production Company: Life Of Dad, Burbank
Co-founder: Tom Riles (Life Of Dad)
Co-founder: Patrick Quinn (Life Of Dad)
Co-founder: David Guest (Life Of Dad)
Co-founder: Art Eddy (Life Of Dad)
Co-founder: Ryan Hamilton (Life Of Dad)
Co-founder: Dan Lazarz (Life Of Dad)
Synopsis:
On June 16, 2016, a California dad posted a meme introducing the world to the Cheerio Challenge, calling for dads to try to stack as many Cheerios as possible on their sleeping child. With in hours, the Cheerio Challenge had taken off, with thousands of parents around the world taking part and posting their photos. From a marketing perspective, this viral trend was unique because Cheerios and General Mills were not officially involved with the meme at the beginning. Our objective was to reach out and coordinate with the Cheerios brand in order to maximize the effect of the Cheerio Challenge for the awareness of their beloved cereal.With our efforts, the Cheerio Challenge grew into a world wide sensation over the Father's Day weekend. Millions of people championed the Cheerio Challenge, including celebrities like Macklemore, Reese Witherspoon and President Barack Obama, showing everyone just how great dads can be.
Strategy:
With the Cheerio Challenge going viral, we had two objectives we looked to accomplish. We wanted to use our knowledge of the dad marketing space to maximize and unify the effect of the world wide attention around the themes of fatherhood and parenting fun. We also wanted to reach out to General Mills and the Cheerios brand to coordinate our efforts in officially connecting the Cheerio Challenge to their greatly admired product.With the phenomenon happening only a few days before Father's Day, we saw terrific potential in linking the spontaneous and irreverent spirit of the Cheerio Challenge to the millions of dads around the globe. In recent years, dads have taken a greater role in household consumer decisions, and once we were officially working with General Mills, we knew we could effectively link the Cheerio Challenge to the excitement and energy dads often bring to the parenting world.
Execution:
We began the #CheerioChallenge hashtag on all social media channels, and soon #CheerioChallenge began to trend on Facebook and Twitter. We then coordinated social media efforts with General Mills and the Cheerios brand around the themes of fatherhood and parenting fun, and as the Father's Day weekend began, the phenomenon took off around the world. The #CheerioChallenge was featured by media outlets everywhere, including the Today Show, CNN, Good Morning America, Buzzfeed, Cartoon Network, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and hundreds of others. With our effective collaborative work with the Cheerios brand, the #CheerioChallenge garnered massive media and online attention over Father's Day, generating terrific word of mouth and natural user-generated activity around the brand. Over the next few days, the #CheerioChallenge was soon adopted by many of the world's most popular celebrities, including The President of the United States, Barack Obama.
Relevancy:
In the modern landscape of promo and activation, nothing can cut through the clutter like true user-generated content. The authentic joy that every day people experience when they take part in a viral social media trend can deliver more happiness and brand affection than nearly any other work. When people collectively share in the emotion and fun of an internet phenomenon like the Cheerio Challenge, they feel happy, alive and entertained in the fullest sense, and for that reason, we are proud to present this work for the Promo & Activation Lions.
Campaign Description:
Have you ever been stuck with a sleeping infant on your chest? Anyone who's been in that situation knows that there's no way to move without waking the baby...which is something you do not want to do.A dad named Patrick Quinn found himself in that very situation in June of 2016. He was trapped with his infant son, Max, asleep on his chest, so to pass the time, Patrick began stacking some nearby Cheerios on Max's little head. Patrick took a photo of his Cheerio stack and created a meme informing the world of his new invention, the Cheerio Challenge.With in an hour of the meme's posting, thousands of people were taking part in the Cheerio Challenge. Dads around the world began submitting photos of their Cheerio stacking handiwork. A few hours later, news and media outlets began covering the Cheerio Challenge, and the trend took off.
Outcome:
Working with the brand to ride this wave of viral excitement was absolutely tremendous. Over the Father's Day weekend of 2016, the #CheerioChallenge generated over 375 million impressions, over 250 major media placements and over 3.5 million social engagements.For Cheerios, the #CheerioChallenge was the best user-generated interaction they could ever hope for. Additionally, the #CheerioChallenge led to a large amount of social good. It helped put a spotlight on the importance of fatherhood. Dads might not always act the same way that moms do, but kids need their dads greatly involved in their daily lives.From late night television to publications world wide, the #CheerioChallenge was a viral sensation that showed the importance of fatherhood, and it was the largest spike in brand-awareness for Cheerios or any General Mills cereal brand in recent years.