Help Wanted: Cereal chemist who can translate marketing directives into cost-efficient executions for the following series of four seasonal-based sweetened breakfast cereals:
Leef Krunch
Formula: Maple sweetened flakes in the shape of leaves, with cinnamon-flavored twigs mixed in with the leaves. Must be able to claim “Real Maple Inside.”
Mascot: Horatio the Crow, who wears a dream catcher around his neck
Marketing Objective: To replace the concept of fall with “it’s leef krunch time.”
Frost Bitez
Formula: Sweetened coconut macaroon-like puffs with red raspberry filling inside.
Mascot: a Yeti named Balthazar who looks like the Abominable Snowman on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
Marketing Objective: In addition to its seasonal and holiday usage, to aspire to the coolness of Frost Bitez in the heat of summer.
Paper Faireez
Formula: Paper-thin, almost translucent wafers in the shape of fairies that when exposed to milk expand like a sponge and turn five different shades of vivid pastel floral colors/flavors: daffodil/lemon, pink tulip/cherry, white clover/honey, honeysuckle/generic berry, violets/violets.
Mascot: Five distinct cartoon paper fairies that bring inanimate/dead things to life by sprinkling spring dust on them; each fairy has the name and color of a flower: Daffodil, Tulip, Clover, Honeysuckle and Violet. Further differentiation in characters is anticipated in development with the agency.
Marketing Objective: To transition toddlers to sweetened hallucinogenic breakfast cereals instead of farina, and to provide an appropriate breakfast-cereal addition to Easter-themed confectionery products.
Beech Treets
Formula: “Sand”-like sugar/hazelnut/wheat granules with the consistency of cream-of-wheat (may consult with independent lab technicians to achieve proper consistency), interspersed with chocolate “tokens” like Monopoly board pieces in the shapes of beach objects like balls, soft-serve ice cream cones, umbrellas, life preservers and rafts -- must achieve a coconut suntan lotion fragrance. This cereal will be packaged in a super-size box.
Mascot: None, instead a toy pail holding a prize of a larger, plastic version of a beach token will be in every box (shovel will not be included due to choking concerns). The advertising campaign will feature an ongoing debate between kids who want to eat the cereal whole, and those who want to take out the chocolate tokens first and put them in the pail for later. There will be seven colors of pails, with directions to collect all seven. In every 100th box, there will be a rainbow pail, but there will be no public announcement or acknowledgement of this, the expectation being that kids will think it’s a mistake and start coveting them.
Marketing Objective: To test the outer limit of how much sugar can be put into a children’s breakfast cereal; this product is expected to have high initial sales during its seasonal introduction, but it is anticipated that parental and regulatory pressure may result in its discontinuation. In its place, a sticky tropical fruit themed version will be introduced, with the sand coating the fruit in clusters.
