Walrus Introduces General Mills’ First New Cereal in 15 Years

By Erik Oster 

New York-based agency Walrus released a campaign promoting Tiny Toast, General Mills first new cereal brand in over 15 years.

Entitled “Humans Can’t Resist,” it features a series of 15-second spots portraying scenes of human-animal role-reversal. In the bizarre “Sheep,” for example, a sheep sheers a hairy man’s back while he slurps up a bowl of Tiny Toast. A tad on the gross side, it’s clearly meant as a humorous execution of the tagline, as the man doesn’t seem to mind having his hair harvested as long as he can keep eating the cereal.

While this is easily the strangest of the bunch, the other spots all follow the same basic premise. “Horse” applies the concept to an old woman cajoled with the cereal by her equine master. “Birds” sees a woman pressed against a glass window, staring at a family of birds sitting down to breakfast, while “Seagull” depicts a bit of human thievery (an act of revenge if you’ve ever had a snack stolen by one of these birds at the beach). All of the spots manage to work in a description of the “real fruit” used in the cereal into their bizarre scenarios. In addition to the online spots, the campaign also includes social media and in-store elements.

“Consumers’ tastes continue to evolve, but they remain steadfast in their search for options with wholesome, pantry-friendly ingredients,” said Alan Cunningham, senior marketing manager at General Mills.

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“This inspired our development process, and we went where few brands in the cereal category have gone before, using real fruit. With real ingredients and a truly irresistible taste, we know consumers will agree Tiny Toast was worth the wait.”


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