Kellogg's celebrates National Cereal Day with NYC bash featuring Hailee Steinfeld

Dive Brief:

To celebrate National Cereal Day, Kellogg's joined forces with actress and musician Hailee Steinfeld for a party at its NYC Café featuring cereal-themed foods, drinks and a liquid nitrogen cereal bar, per a news release. The event kicked off a two-day celebration of cereal.
Attendees were treated to a performance by Steinfeld, a New Year's Eve-styled countdown at midnight and mixes by DJ Flipside. The café was decorated with large cereal boxes suspended from the ceiling, a photo booth with cereal-themed party favors, colorful confetti and a giant "disco bowl" that lit up at the stroke of midnight.
Recipes for some of the creations served at the event, such as Falafel Sliders made with Special K cereal and Loopy Froot Loops Cocktails, are available on the Kellogg's NYC Café website. Fans are encouraged to re-create some of the featured recipes or share their own combinations using the #NationalCerealDay hashtag, and to follow the holiday on the brand's Instagram and Facebook pages and on Steinfeld's Instagram.

Dive Insight:

National Cereal Day is an opportunity for Kellogg's to put some extra marketing behind some its core products, and the brand went beyond the typical hashtag shout-outs this year with an out-of-home activation featuring celebrity appearances, cereal-inspired décor and a lineup of special recipes. By referring to the party as "Insta-worthy" in the release, Kellogg's emphasizes how the event was expressly designed to encourage visitors to take pictures and post them on apps like Instagram, spreading the brand's reach beyond New York City. That strategy extends to the recipe piece of the campaign as well, where Kellogg's wants ambitious foodies to share their cereal-focused kitchen experiments online.

The 'disco bowl' at Kellogg's NYC Cafe celebration.

Sara Jaye Weiss via PR Newswire

This type of stunt is one way the company can position its foods as cool and relevant to millennials and other younger consumers who have shifted to on-the-go breakfasts like granola bars, smoothies and yogurt. Cereal sales have declined over the past several years, dropping 2.4% since 2012, according to Nielsen data. In a study by Mintel, nearly 40% of millennials reported they don't like cereal because of all the cleanup involved, per USA Today. Kellogg's opened a permanent NYC Café in December after testing the idea at smaller pop-up events.

Marketers continue to eye these types of digitally-minded OOH activations that let consumers engage with brands and products in person and then post those experiences on social media. Made-up holidays like National Cereal Day have also become a tactic commonly used by brands to create fun, quirky campaigns that drive sales and foot traffic. Oreos earlier this week celebrated National Oreo Day with Shaquille O'Neal — their birthday happens to coincide — and chains like Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Kreme regularly give away free pastries on National Doughnut Day in June.