Kellogg's Breakfast Mates

Market Analysis on Kellogg’s Breakfast Mates

Kellogg’s breakfast Mates, an all in one solution for a great breakfast, or so the company thought. In 1989, Kellogg’s decided that they were going to jump on the bandwagon of convenience and came out with Breakfast Mates. Breakfast Mates came with a single serving of cereal, Corn Flakes, Mini Wheat, Fruit Loops, or Frosted Flakes, a small container of aseptically packaged milk, a spoon and the package conveniently turned into a bowl. Aseptically packaged milk is milk that doesn’t need to be refrigerated. This was very convenient, or so the company thought.

The problem started off with the fact that most people don’t associate having cereal with warm milk. The company was faced with this dilemma right from the start. So, even though the milk inside didn’t require being refrigerated, the company decided to have the product placed in the dairy section alongside pudding, yogurt, jello and cheese because they realized consumers wanted their milk cold not warm. Inevitably, this caused even bigger issues because you wouldn’t expect cereal to be refrigerated, so they would look for it in the cereal isle. After spending “30 million dollars on television ads and print advertisement campaigns (Kellogg’s Breakfast Mates, 2014)”, the company didn’t want to spend more money to educate their customers to look for their new product in the dairy section of their grocery store.

In addition to this, many consumers were not happy with the way Kellogg’s advertised their new product. The television commercials aimed at adults with small children. These ad’s showed tired parents telling their young children that they could get their own breakfast from the kitchen. All the kids had to do was pull the Breakfast Mates from the refrigerator, and they could do it all by themselves. These ads made parents look like they were lazy, and small children had issues opening the packages, as well as getting the milk opened.

By...