OF CORNFLAKES, COLD MILK AND COLOURED SPOONS

You know how it is, you’ve worked on Kellogg’s.  You haven’t?  No matter.  You’ve worked on big multinational brands -- and after a point, most big brand problems are broadly the same.

Like stagnant sales.  You’ve managed to establish a foothold for the client’s missionary brand in India, where breakfast habits are very different, but now the need is to scale up.

“People should eat cornflakes in COLD MILK, that’s when they’re crisp and crunchy!”  says Denis, the country head and Kellogg’s lifer.

Denis is French and is feeling the pressure to start turning a profit.  So is his boss, another Frenchman who is the Asia Pacific head (and when the two jointly addressed the annual Indian sales conference at an exotic hotel in Goa, their catch phrase ‘growth imperative’ is delivered with strongly-accented Gallic flair as “growf eemparateef”, much to the bemusement of the salesmen).

Anyway.  Sales are static.  In vain you point out that you’ve increased the font size of instructions on the packaging, the bit where it says ‘best with cold milk.’  You repeat that in an Indian household Mom boils the milk for tea first thing in the morning, and that’s what goes into everything – including the kids’ cornflakes.  Kids are a key target.  You promise to work on a solution.

In the agency brainstorm, an idea emerges: there is a plastic which is temperature sensitive.  Place a special plastic spoon in each pack and when dipped into cold milk the white spoon magically turns blue.  You present the Magic Spoon promo and it is approved at once.  You get your team working on the 10-second promo film, the print ad and the in-store material.  The client will get the spoons made and packed with the cornflakes. 

Alas, the best laid plans of mice and admen gang aft agley.

There is a delay in procuring the spoons.  There is further delay in inserting them into the carton (it is an ‘untouched by human hands’ production line).  By the time the promo packs reach the stores, winter had set in and North India – by far the biggest market -- is in the grip of a cold wave.

Months later you meet the regional sales head and he reports, “It was freezing weather and the spoons were naturally blue.  When they were dipped in hot milk, they turned white.  The kids were delighted, and there was a small bump in sales.”

You smile and shrug.