Kellogg's Coco Pops - Gamifying Breakfast for Digital Natives

Intro

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, breakfast cereal brands face unique challenges in connecting with tech-savvy children. When Kellogg's iconic Coco Pops needed to reimagine its position in the market, we recognised an opportunity to transform a breakfast table staple into a digital-first experience that would resonate with modern families. By bringing together gaming innovation and family bonding, we created a campaign that not only drove brand preference but also facilitated meaningful interaction between parents and children.

The Challenge

Kellogg's Coco Pops faced multiple hurdles in an evolving consumer landscape:

• Cereals were under scrutiny as consumers became increasingly sugar-conscious, with 40% of shoppers struggling to identify "healthy" options
• Parents were actively seeking lower-sugar alternatives for their children
• Traditional TV viewership was declining among children, disrupting Kellogg's established awareness channels
• Brand relevance was diminishing among children, while parent penetration was decreasing
• Kellogg's had reformulated Coco Pops with 30% less sugar to address parental concerns
• Plastic toys had been removed from packaging as part of sustainability initiatives

The primary challenge was clear: How do you engage the modern Gen Alpha child who prefers Minecraft hoodies to Nike and Roblox tokens to pocket money? How do you convince children to choose your cereal while reassuring parents of its values?

Insight

We recognised a fundamental truth about today's children: Gen Alpha kids were born digital.

Raised with iPads and iPhones, by 2021, 80% of children played games online. This generation engages with brands differently, preferring interactive digital experiences over passive consumption.

Simultaneously, we understood that parents still gatekeep children's digital activities, approving what content their children engage with and which devices they use. Any solution would need to appeal to children while earning parental endorsement.

Most importantly, we identified a valuable opportunity to create moments where digital play could bring families together rather than isolate them—transforming screen time into a shared experience.

Strategy

Our strategy centred on transforming how Coco Pops engaged with its audience through three key principles:

1. Be More Game, Less Cereal: To connect with Gen Alpha, we needed to evolve beyond traditional cereal marketing and meet children in their native digital playgrounds.
2. Digital-First Engagement: We developed digital experiences that would capture children's attention while building cognitive, physical, and social skills—providing value that parents would appreciate.
3. Create Family Moments: We designed experiences that facilitated shared creative play between parents and children, ensuring that digital engagement became a bridge for real-world connection.

By gamifying Coco the Monkey, we could reinvigorate the brand's mascot for a digital generation while showcasing the magic at the heart of the Coco Pops experience—turning milk chocolatey!

Execution, Solution and Innovation

We created 'Start the Magic', a multimarket campaign (UK, Italy, and Ireland) that brought Coco Pops into children's digital worlds while building bridges to shared family experiences:

Innovative Mini-Game

• A custom-built ad unit that utilised mobile phones' motion and orientation capabilities
• Children physically tilted their devices to jump Coco the Monkey across 'un-popping' bubbles, collecting Coco Pops packs for points
• Designed to encourage repeat play by challenging children to beat their previous scores
• Contextually targeted within kid-friendly gaming environments through partnership with 'Venatus Kids'
• Deployed across desktop and in-app inventory, including popular children's games like Angry Birds 2, Sonic Dash, and Plants Vs Zombies

Cross-Channel Amplification

• TV and VOD content across children's channels drove awareness of the magical Coco Pops experience
• Social networks and parenting influencers targeted parents, showcasing magic tricks they could recreate with their children
• The campaign featured two 8-week bursts aligned with school holidays to maximise reach

From Digital to Physical

• Upon completing the game, children could extend the experience offline by watching a tutorial to create their own un-popping bubbles at home with their parents
• This translated digital engagement into tangible family activities, creating meaningful shared moments

Result and Business Effect

The campaign delivered exceptional results across multiple metrics:

• Massive Engagement: The game was played four million times
• Significant Reach: Connected with 2.5 million children in the UK, 1.1 million in Italy, and 167,000 in Ireland
• Strong Retention: View Through Rate of 84% in the UK and 89% in Italy, exceeding the 75% KPI
• High Interaction: Game Engagement Rate of 26% in the UK and Italy, and 27% in Ireland, surpassing the 20% KPI
• Brand Impact: 93% Ad/Game Recall, with 92% considering Coco Pops fun and 71% preferring Coco Pops
• Perception Shift: Coco Pops 'fun factor' increased by 25% with the target audience

By transforming a traditional breakfast cereal into an engaging digital experience, we successfully reconnected Coco Pops with a new generation of consumers while facilitating meaningful interactions between parents and children. The campaign demonstrated how brands can evolve to meet the expectations of digital natives while still fostering valuable real-world connections.