Advertising
Age reported General
Mills is staging a global creative shootout across
its portfolio of products, featuring up to 100 brands including Annie’s,
Cheerios, and Fiber One—the latter being appropriately highlighted, as the
impending review is sure to be a shitshow.
A
General Mills statement declared: “As we continue to
build iconic brands, we are always looking at our internal and partner
capabilities. We are in the early stages to kick off a review of our creative
capabilities, including our project-based agency roster.”
The
General Mills corporate speak could be translated as
follows: “We’re gonna dump as much work as possible into our in-house
outhouses. Then we’ll divvy up major projects to an exclusive stable of White
advertising agencies, awarding stuff to the lowest bidders. All White women
celebrations—eg, Women’s History Month, International Women’s Day, Equal Pay
Day, Menopause Awareness, etc—will receive generous marketing budgets and be
handled by the White advertising agencies too. We’ll proudly and performatively
allocate cautious consideration and cash for the LGBTQIA+ community. Finally,
we’ll toss crumbs
to minority
firms for one-offs of color—like Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage
Month, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and
Native American Heritage Month.”
As
the industry continues to devolve into a cage fight for the right to
participate on tactical initiatives, AOR has come to mean Assignee Of Record—emphasis
on Ass.
General Mills launches global creative review
Marketer of brands including Annie’s, Cheerios and Fiber One named UM
media agency of record last October
By Lindsay Rittenhouse
General Mills has launched a global creative agency review
across its portfolio of 100 brands, which include Annie’s, Cheerios and Fiber
One.
The review will be handled by consultancy R3, which
declined comment.
Last
October, General Mills named a new global media agency of
record, Interpublic Group of Cos.’ UM, which took that account from WPP’s
Mindshare, following a review led by Mediasense.
“As
we continue to build iconic brands, we are always looking at our internal and
partner capabilities,” a General Mills spokesperson said in a statement. “We
are in the early stages to kick off a review of our creative capabilities,
including our project-based agency roster.”
The
company currently works with different agencies on different brands. For
example, Stagwell-owned Anomaly works on creative for brands including Cinnamon
Toast Crunch, Reese’s Puffs and Honey Nut Cheerios, while Pereira O’Dell has
done work for Annie’s. Specialty food marketing shop Ingredient is the
company’s content marketing agency of record. Independent shop Erich and
Kallman is also on the roster.
It’s
unclear if General Mills is looking to consolidate its account with one agency,
or which shops are pitching.
General
Mills spent $810 million on worldwide advertising and media in its fiscal year
2023, which ended in May, according to its annual regulatory filing. The
Minneapolis-based food company spent $657 million on measured media in the U.S.
in 2023, up from $507 million in 2022, according to Vivvix, including paid
social data from Pathmatics.
Analysts
will get their next look at General Mills’ financials on March 20, when it
reports fiscal third-quarter results. The company reported lower volume sales,
which contributed to net sales falling 2% to $5.1 billion, in its second fiscal
quarter ended in November. General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening cited “a continued
challenging consumer landscape.” By comparison, cereal rival WK Kellogg Co.’s
sales were down 3.7% to nearly $651 million in its fourth quarter.
General
Mills has recently been trying to find new, younger audiences for some of its
household food brands. It’s done so with a new emerging brand partnerships approach that’s seen collaborations between FaZe Clan and Totinos and Betty Crocker and “The Marvelous
Mrs. Maisel,” among others. The company also introduced last
month a “Loaded” cereal lineup, with vanilla
creme-filled versions of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cocoa Puffs, among others,
in its attempts to attract more Gen Z consumers.
Contributing:
Erika Wheless