Dive Brief:

• Kellogg’s cereal brand Froot Loops is launching its first new campaign in 50 years called “Whatever Froots Your Loops” in partnership with three brands — Neff Headwear, Timbuk2 and State Bicycle Co. — per a press release.
• The first collaboration is with Neff Headwear and features Neff + Froot Loops Toucan Sam Shades designed by Shaun Neff, the founder of the Los Angeles-based streetwear brand. Sticking with the campaign’s concept, the sunglasses come in a storage case containing interchangeable faceplates and arms in Froot Loops-inspired colors, giving wearers 80 potential combinations, and a cleaning cloth. The kits, whose production has been limited to 400, cost $40 and will be sold at neffheadwear.com/frootloops and at the Kellogg's NYC storefront in New York City.
• The press release didn’t detail how the cereal brand will collaborate with its other two campaign partners, Timbuk2 and State Bicycle Co.

Dive Insight:

Brands getting into merchandising became popular around the holidays with Cheetos releasing a luxury product catalog and e-store, and Mondelez International’s Oreo also launching a branded e-commerce site with consumer holiday gifts. For the NBA All-Star weekend in February, Pepsi created a branded website for its Uncle Drew character played by Kyrie Irving with an e-commerce element which at the time was described as showing the “evolution” of the Uncle Drew brand and a way to keep people connected to the brand at multiple touch points, according to Aziel Rivers, director of marketing at Pepsi.

Developing unique, limited edition products can help brands build excitement with younger fans and gain earned media. The e-commerce element also helps brands gather data about customers while addressing the growth in online shopping. 

In Mondelez’s case, even though the Oreo e-commerce site was holiday-specific, it was also described as part of a global e-commerce strategy that the consumer products giant expects to grow revenue by at least $1 billion by 2020. And Oreo’s global director of e-commerce Neil Ackerman said the brand’s to become a leader in e-commerce.

The Kellogg’s campaign looks to be a more traditional brand partnership with the Neff sunglasses for sale online at the Neff website rather than a Froot Loops branded e-commerce site along with offline at Kellogg’s NYC storefront.