Mother's Cookies Getting a Rebirth Under Kellogg

Kellogg is hoping that it can leverage social media to bring a once-regional brand, Mother’s Cookies, national.

The plan, which attempts to transfer buzz among Mother’s original fans from the West Coast and link the cookies in consumers’ minds to “moments of joy,” is devoid of traditional media like TV and print. 

The campaign started this month with a Facebook “cookie personality” quiz, scavenger hunt and a moving, collage-like mix of videos and photos now running on MothersCookies.com.

WonderGroup, Cincinnati, collected the footage from a one-month tour of West Coast cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. In each case, consumers were given four different samples of Mother's Cookies and then asked to recount, on camera, their memories of eating the cookies.

One man strummed a guitar while singing with a cookie in his mouth; another talked of how she and her friend had “stockpiled” Mother’s Cookies after learning that the company had ceased plant operations in October 2008. (The business went into bankruptcy under the ownership of Catterton Partners, a private equity group.) A third consumer professed her love of Mother’s Cookies mainly for their link back to childhood.

WonderGroup chief creative officer Jeff Jones said the campaign was prompted by  research which showed that most consumers didn’t know that Kellogg had brought the cookie brand this past May.

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