Dive Brief:

• Kellogg's cereal brand Frosted Mini-Wheats is giving families a chance to win a board game inspired by the morning rush to eat breakfast and get ready for school and work. The Frosted Mini-Wheats Morning Craze game challenges players to silence "The Growl" they experience from missing breakfast by moving around the board and picking up pieces of cereal as they go, according to an announcement.
• The sweepstakes is only available to members of the Kellogg's Family Rewards program, who have until Oct. 25 to enter at a special microsite. Kellogg's will choose 500 winners of a Frosted Mini-Wheats prize kit that includes the board game and a box of cereal.
• Kellogg's enlisted Kristin Hensley and Jen Smedley, the comedians who created the #IMOMSOHARD online community on Facebook and Instagram, to help promote the sweepstakes on social media. Fans can participate in the campaign by sharing posts with the #FrostedMiniWheats and #MorningCraze hashtags, per the announcement.

Dive Insight:

Kellogg's contest for a chance to win a Frosted Mini-Wheats Morning Craze board game is notable for several reasons, including the resurgence of nostalgic, family-oriented activities during the coronavirus pandemic. The yearning for the comforts of home not only has driven higher demand for board games, it also has led consumers to seek familiar food brands as they prepare more meals at home. With its sweepstakes, Kellogg can help to increase membership for its loyalty rewards program while giving existing members another reason to check in with its website. The company can use the enrollment information and engagement data from its social channels to measure the campaign's effectiveness.

By enlisting influencers Kristin Hensley and Jen Smedley in the campaign, Kellogg seeks to engage their followers on social media and raise awareness for its brands. Influencer marketing has gained greater acceptance among brands during the pandemic as they seek to develop fresh ad creative that cuts through online clutter. Almost three quarters (73%) of marketers said they have put more resources into influencer marketing in the past year, social influencer marketing agency Takumi found in a survey.

Kellogg is among the major brands that have developed merchandise tie-ins to connect with consumers and demonstrate cultural relevance. McDonald's has offered a variety of branded merchandise in the past few years, and in February launched the Quarter Pounder Fan Club on its e-commerce site to sell products inspired by the popular menu item. Kellogg's rival General Mills last month sought to mine nostalgia for familiar brands by partnering with Champion Athleticwear on a capsule collection of activewear inspired by cereals such as Lucky Charms and Wheaties.

The board game sweepstakes is Kellogg's latest online giveaway of a product inspired by its cereal brands. The company two weeks ago gave people a chance to win the "Special K Blursday Go-Away Kit," which featured a different cereal flavor for each day of the week. Kellogg gave away the kits, which sought to help people avoid the feeling that each day is blurring into the next during the pandemic, to 700 members of its loyalty rewards program.

Kellogg's campaigns are part of a broader trend among packaged foods companies that have boosted their marketing in the second half of the year after seeing a jump in sales to homebound consumers in Q2. Kellogg reported a 26% surge for North American cereal sales in Q2 from a year earlier, helping to drive a 9.2% gain in comparable sales, per a quarterly announcement. While panic-buying of necessities has subsided as pandemic lockdowns ease, Kellogg may continue to see higher sales as people prepare more meals at home.