Brand Failures

Idea failures 39
they could just get breakfast injected into them on the run,’ says Gerald
Celente, editor of the Trends Journal, a marketing-industry newsletter.
Cereal Mates may have enabled people to take their cereal with them, but
they still had to pour the milk over it, and spend valuable time eating the
cereal with a small spoon. As Keith Naughton concluded in the article above,
Breakfast Mates ‘failed to catch on because it was impossible to eat while
driving.’
Indeed, where Kellogg’s has had success in the convenience food market it
is with breakfast bars such as Nutri-grain. Unlike Cereal Mates, these bars
can be consumed in seconds, and on the move. Moreover, they don’t involve
warm milk.
Lessons from Kellogg’s Cereal Mates
Consumers don’t like warm milk on their cereal. OK, I think we’ve established
that one.
Don’t mix your messages. On the one hand, Cereal Mates was an ‘eat
anywhere’ product. On the other, Kellogg’s was implying it needed to be
stored in a refrigerator.
Sell the brand in the right place. Cereal Mates was, essentially, a cereal rather
than a milk product. Consumers would have therefore expected to see it
on the shelves next to the other cereal products.
Be the best in at least one thing. As a cereal product Cereal Mates failed
because there were tastier and equally healthy alternatives. As a convenience
product it failed because breakfast bars proved to be a faster, more
flexible option.
Don’t price too high. Consumers did not expect to pay as much as they did
for a four ounce box of cereal.