General Mills' Bugles will distribute 250,000 CD-ROMs next month to college students in Chicago and Seattle to build brand recognition among this highly desirable target audience.
The crux of the campaign will be the inclusion of the CD-ROMs in the Bounty SCA Worldwide Good Stuff network. Good Stuff boxes are distributed to college students when they arrive on campus at the beginning of the school year. They typically include packaged goods, such as shaving cream and candy.
The CD-ROMs feature Atomic Pop band The Gas Giants, which is made up of former members of the Gin Blossoms. It includes three tracks from the band, broadcast-quality videos and hyperlinks to targeted promotions.
The Gas Giants will perform in Chicago and Seattle. Bugles product samples will be at the concerts. Street teams will hand out postcards and posters as well as Bugles samples. Radio spots also will run in the target markets.
“We're trying to surround the consumer,” said Steven Kaplan, CEO at Bounty SCA Worldwide, Glenview, IL, the full-service promotions company that planned the campaign.
The promotions include an offer where entrants can win concert tickets and backstage passes. It also has a viral tell-a-friend component that allows the user to e-mail friends and family information about the offer and the shows. All of these features will help General Mills gather consumer data.
“Bugles was faced with the challenge of, 'How do you make food cool and innovative?' Food doesn't cut it, but music does,” Kaplan said. “They're attempting to enhance the loyalty of Bugles for the brand and increase purchase and awareness among college students.”
This pilot program may be a prelude to a larger national campaign. “We're doing phase one and then we'll roll it out nationwide,” Kaplan said.
Phase two will likely include a large direct mail drop sent to the American Student List that belongs to the Data Services division of Bounty SCA.
BroadBridge Media provided the CD-ROM technology. BroadBridge's HyperCD combines the content of a quality CD-ROM with the real-time dynamic playback capabilities of the Web to drive targeted marketing relationships.
