Shreddies had gotten boring in the eyes of Canadians. The 70-year-old brand was in decline and there was no fresh product innovation to draw attention to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those who don’t know, Shreddies is a square-shaped latticed wholewheat breakfast cereal made in England, Canada, and New Zealand more than 60 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2008, Ogilvy & Mather Toronto was hired by Kraft Foods to build a campaign to bring Shreddies back to the top of the breakfast market. The product’s quality was judged to be good, even though sales were not. – in fact, the taste was described as evocative of childhood and remained well-loved by many consumers. Because there were so many other fascinating breakfast options, they didn’t give much thought to the Shreddies’ reputation for dependability, health, and purity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hunter Somerville, a 26-year-old intern at Ogilvy, jokingly held up a Shreddie and said, “It’s not a square, it’s a diamond.” It was a joke to Somerville, but Nancy Vonk, who headed\u00a0the creative team, saw the potential for much more and urged him to pursue the idea. That’s how they\u00a0came up with Diamond Shreddies\u2014 A new product with the same physical properties as the original, but with a different look. The product was available in two shapes: traditional and diamond and customers could select the one they preferred. “Combo Pack” was also available, which reportedly included both versions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rebranding efforts included billboards, TV advertisements, printed media, a website with an online movie, and new box packaging with the Diamond Shreddies emblem – all in the brand’s distinctive bright yellow colour. As a result of the campaign’s wacky and amusing style, it quickly became popular on a variety of social media platforms and in blogs and forums. There was one video in particular that went popular on YouTube that depicted a consumer focus group sampling the ordinary and diamond shreddies. Websites like Shreddies.com stated that \u201cRecent advances in cereal technology have allowed us to take Shreddies cereal to a whole new level of geometric superiority\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n