General Mills, Inc. 15200 Industrial Park Blvd NECovington, GA 30014 Ken PowellGeneral Mills, Inc.Number One General Mills BlvdMinneapolis, MN 55426 Dear Mr. Powell, In this report, you will find the information you requested, to evaluate our situation with the issue of child obesity. We have also provided you five solutions along with our four criteria that we evaluated our solutions with.

Our criteria assessed several prominent segments that will help us handle the issue of child obesity. To help you make your decision on this issue: child marketing, our nutrition standards, our image and our company’s profitability.

In order to make a change, we have provided these five solutions that we heavily believe will turn our company’s current image and profits around. We are one of the largest cereal providers in the world, and in order to continue our current standings, we must evolve.

By researching how obesity in America is affected by our advertisements and how America’s youth is leading an unhealthy lifestyle, we realized the changes that could be made to further our company’s success. The implementation of these changes could not only increase our company’s profits but our image as well.

We appreciate your faith in our committee to research to create five solutions that can serve as a guide for our company to move forward, and serve as a positive role model for American consumers, and other companies.

We will be happy to answer any questions our methods or the processes that would have to be put into place if our solutions were implemented. Please contact us at (847) 234-5678 or email us at ObesityCommittee@GerenalMills.com. We look forward to discussing starting a solution in order to improve our company.

Sincerely,

General Mills Child Obesity Research Committee

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Executive Summary General Mills is one of the leaders in cereal production. Our company is the face of child cereal brands, which makes us responsible to establish a healthy lifestyle.  However, General Mills has failed to market healthy, low-sugar cereals to children.  Obesity has become a major issue in the United States, and our company is not helping the the current situation.  Our mission is to be a positive role model for children and their families.  

In order to improve the health and quality of life for our customers and the image of our company, serious action needs to be taken.  The following solutions have been suggested among General Mills Obesity Committee, to ensure that the marketing and health issues will not impede on General Mills success.  The possible solutions have been deliberated under the following criteria: brand loyalty, nutritional standards, ethical marketing and competition with other brands.

Our solutions are:

1. Maintain our current practices: The last quarter, our company was leading in our sales, but cereal production has been declining over the past few years. If we are to keep up with our current production standards, maintaining our current practices could be a viable solution.

2. Stop marketing to children: Will eliminate the ethical problem of using children to gain profits and instead broaden our spectrum of marketing to adults.  This will help improve our company’s image.      3. Parent education program: Just because the product is on the shelf does not mean parents and guardians have to purchase them. This solution educates caregivers on what they are putting on the table and how it can positively or negatively affects their children. It informs adults of the health information in a quick and easy way online.

4. Establish a healthy campaign: The “Go Big G” campaign will be implemented by displaying the mascots of cereal brands running, playing sports, and being active.  The “Go Big G” campaign will be plastered across cereal boxes.  By doing so, children will be influenced that being active is an important part of a healthy lifestyle.

5. Lower the sugar content: Over time, the importance of health and the movement of health awareness has become more apparent. With this solution, we would be eliminating the sugars in cereals over the daily recommendation for children ages 4-8 years old. By doing this, we will be able to appeal to the new movement of healthy living.

Based on these possible solutions, we recommend that we lower the sugar content in our cereals over 12g per serving. By doing this, we will be able to make our products healthier, while still fulfilling each of our criteria- staying faithful to our brand, maintaining nutritional standards, marketing ethically, and being able to compete with other brands.

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General Mills and childhood obesity I.  History/background of Company          A.  Overall History

1. Started with two flourmills in the 1860’s- Washburn formed the Minneapolis Milling Company in 1856

2. People said demand for flour in the midwestern spring wheat would never match what Washburn’s company could supply   

3. Within five years, half of Minneapolis’ milling capacity was wiped out due to a flour dust explosion

B.  History with cereal productionII. Public Image

A. Diversity1. Networks within the corporation

                       a. American Indian Councilb. Asian heritage Networkc. Lesbian, Gay, Bixsexual, Transsexual (LGBT) Network

                              d. ... & more                    2. 19.4% of employees are minorities

B. Integrity         1. Ethics and compliance group

                    2. Work Environment                                a. Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For”                                b. Financial Time’s “United Kingdom’s 50 Best Workplaces”                                c. Canada’s Great Place to Work Institute’s “Top 75 Best                                Workplaces”                    3. Global                                a. 6th largest food company                                b. Sells to over 100 countries                                c. Offices or manufacturing facilities in over 30 countriesIII.  Financial Background

A. Company has improved since the recession1. Packaged food company’s benefit

             2. Stock fallen 26%- not nearly as bad as other companies             3. More families stay home and cook            B. Ingredients             1. Costs for ingredients and energy rise 5%             2. Company expects cost of inflation 7%            C. Media spending increase             1. Advertising and media spending 33% increase             2. Yoplait light sales grew            3. Meal kits- easy and affordable for familiesIV. History of Obesity

A. Obesity in America1. Lowest Percentage State- Colorado- 20.7%

            2. Highest Percentage State- Mississippi- 34.9%

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B. Childhood Obesity           1. Increase over time            a. 5% in 1976-80 to 13.9% (2003-04)                       b. Since 1967, ages 6 to 11, percentage went from 5 to 14%                       c. Since 1967, ages 12 to 19, percentage went from 5 to 17.1%           2. 2003                       a. Highest Percentage State- West Virginia- 20.9%                       b. Lowest Percentage State- Utah- 8.5%           3. 2005                       a. Highest Percentage State- Kentucky- 38.2%                       b. Lowest Percentage State- Colorado- 21.9%           4. 2007                       a. Highest Percentage State- Mississippi- 44.4%                       b. Lowest Percentage States- Minnesota and Utah- 23.1%C. Trends in Preschoolers           1. 1 in 8 are obese           2. 5 times more likely to be obese as adultsD. Recent Trends           1. Rates are at a record high           2. Recent risks of type 2 diabetesE. Trends Related to Sugary Cereals           1. Ingredients

a. More sugar leading to more calories           2. Children’s small allowance for calories from sugars                       a. 12 grams from sugars/day           3. Example of General Mills

a. Wheaties Fuel- contains more sugar than the 18 grams packed into a Twinkie

V.  How cereal relates to a healthy lifestyleA. Statistics on cereal production

           1.  Obesity among children aged 6 to 11 has more than doubled in the past 20 years, going from 6.5% in 1980 to 17% in 2006.  

2.   Kids who ate more cereal got more vitamin D, B-3, B-12            3.   The study finds that cereals marketed to kids have 85 percent more

sugar, 60 percent more sodium and 65 percent less fiber than those aimed at adults. B. How much cereal children eat           1.    31% of Americans eat breakfast            2.   Regularly eating cereal for breakfast is tied to healthy weight for

kids     C. Other contributors to obesity

1.   Not eating breakfast in general creates a higher risk for obesity VI. History of government involvement with focus on children

A. How America feels1. More serious than smoking2. Concern has increased

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B. Government Implications1. Both parties agree that obesity is issue2. Divide in how to handle issue3. Dietary guidelines created4. Children’s Television Act

C. Self-Regulation1. Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative2. Children’s Advertising Review Unit

D. How General Mills feel about regulations1. System is flawed2. Failed pledges

VII. Advertising        A. Nutritional Ads                    1. General Mills has guidelines for healthy dietary choices and

sugar guidelines                    2. Must contain 175 calories or less per labeled serving and less than 12

grams or less of sugar per serving                    3. Not marketed to children under the age of 12        B. Strict guidelines                    1. No product advertising or marketing to children in K-12 schools

or school settings.                    2. Children in advertisements must be active                    3. General Mills website targeting children, includes a 30- minute activity

breakC. Advertising to children

1. General Mill’s Policya. Evaluating advertisementsb. No child social networking advertisements

2. Social Networking scandalsa. Had to shut down our websitesb. Make sure to keep watch in future

                       3. General Mills’ Child Advertising Campaignsa. Decreased website adsb. Heavily market cereal

                       4. Misplaced Advertising a. Targeting healthy cereals to parents, sugar to adultsb. Should look into marketing healthy cereal to children

D. Change in Marketing from Children to Parents1. Marketing to Children

            a. Stressing the importance of breakfast            b. Specific cereals: Trix, Cocoa Pebbles, and Lucky Charms

2. Marketing to Parents                       a. Mission statement            1. “Live healthier, easier, and richer. Nourishing Lives”     2. Nutrients

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                        a. Vitamins                                    b. Minerals                                    c. “Key Essential Nutrients”                                    d. Fiber                                    e. Less fat & Cholesterol                       b. Social Networking                                   1. Twitter                                   2. Facebook                                   3. Instagram                                   4. Web site

VIII. NutritionA. 31% of Americans eat cereal for breakfastB. Many Americans are consuming too much sugar in cereal        C. Many cereals advertised or found as healthy has just as much or more sugar

than Fruity Pebbles IX. Parent Groups

A. Aware of marketing on T.V. and in magazines, but not aware of marketing in other areas1. Parents angry that some foods look fun

         2. Some parents like that family is idealized3. Parents unaware of the hidden marketing strategies4. Parents recognize and applaud companies that improve nutrition of       

                  product            5. Believe company is making money off children X.  Long term/short term

A. More SugarB. Genetically Modified Organisms C. Effects

1. Weight gain 2. Disease

a. Type II diabetes 3. Unhealthy lifestyle

4. Elevated blood pressure XI. Consumer demand

A. General MillsB. Best Selling Brand

1. CheeriosC. Healthy Cereals

XII. CriteriaA.  Brand LoyaltyB. NutritionC. Ethical MarketingD. Competition with Other Brands

XIII. Potential solutionsA. Stop marketing to children

1. Focus on marketing to parents

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2. Ethical reasons market only nutritional cereals 3. Nutrition reduce risk of childhood obesity 4. Brand Loyalty does not apply to solution5. Competition with other brands advertise children being more active in

commercials 6. Focusing on marketing to parents/adults7. Ethical reasons help reduce our impact on childhood obesity

B. Maintain Current Practices1. Brand Loyalty

a. Keeping our same product would make us loyal2. Nutrition

a. Have not delivered on promises3. Ethical Marketing

a. Our company is not doing as wellb. Need to marketc. Not delivering on pledges

4. Competition with other brandsa. Cereal brands not doing wellb. Lead with profits in last quarterc. Changing cereal could change that

5. Conclusiona. Not following through on promisesb. Change must be made

C. Program to Educated Parents and Guardians 1. Proposed Solution2. Fit to criteria

a. Loyalty to Brandb. Nutritionc. Ethical Marketingd. Competition with Other Brands

D. Healthy campaign 1. Promoting a healthy lifestyle

a. Activity- playing sports & exerciseb. Eating nutritious food- balanced diet with General Mills

cereal2. Labeled on boxes, commercials, General Mills website (various media

outlets).3. Advertisements will show the cereal “mascot” being active

a. Example: Trix the rabbit running, Tony the Tiger jumping, Captain Crunch playing soccer, etc.

b. Any advertisement will promote some type of activity.E. Lower sugar content

1.  Proposed Solutiona. Change- new standard is 12g or underb. Children ages 4-8 only allowed 12g of sugar per dayc. 7 brands over 12g

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2. Competitors’ Efforts3. Strategy4. Fit to Criteria

a. Faithfulness to the brandb. Nutritionc. Ethical Marketingd. Competition With Other Brands

XIV. Our Recommendation

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("Google Images", 2013, “General Mills”

“Google Images “, 2013, “General Mills”

General Mills: History

General Mills started in 1856 when Cadwallader C. Washburn formed the Minneapolis Milling Company and leased the rights to milling operators. Ten years later he built his first flour mill near the falls of St. Anthony, Minneapolis. Critics at first said that “The demand for flour from Midwestern spring wheat would never match what Washburn’s company could supply”(General Mills, 2013, para. 1).

Washburn thought differently though and was determined to expand production. He even opened up a second larger factory in 1874 after even more criticism. Washburn also started using new state of art equipment to produce his flour making it higher quality. From that point on Washburn strived to become the best producer and seller of flour in America.

He accomplished his goal in 1880 “when he entered a finest flours in competition at the first International Millers’ Exhibition in Cincinnati, Ohio, winning the gold, silver and bronze medals”(General Mills, 2013, para. 5). finally proving to everyone that he had the best flour in the world.

Our first big boom of cereal production started in 1941 with “Cheeri Oats”. The process took “months of trial and error to figure out how to “puff” the oats we used into a shape which, since then, has delivered good times and whole grain nutrition to lots of kids, adults and families”(Cheerios, 2013, para. 2). Through the years we have come a long way “Our mission is to nourish everyone by making lives healthier, easier and richer” has never changed (Cheerios, 2013,para. 1).

In recent news we have made massive strides in expanding “General Mills manufactures its products in 15 countries and markets them in more than 100 countries. The Company's joint ventures manufacture and market products in more than 130 countries and republics worldwide” (General Mills Inc, 2013, para. 1).

This is just another example of how we push ourselves to give the best quality service possible. “The company belongs to the Fortune 500, and it is well known as a good place to work, with excellent benefits and policies which promote the hiring of women and minorities”(Wise Geek, 2013, para. 5).

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We have always stood by our values of “Nourishing Lives, Nourishing Communities, Nourishing the Future”(Cheerios, 2013, para. 1). These values have always been with us from the beginning and will forever continue to be.

Public Image

Diversity

In the eye of the public, our firm actually has a strong image and looks like a very professional, caring company that people want to buy from. First off, we are known to be diverse and hire diverse employees. We pride ourselves in having our products “apply to as broad a customer base as possible” (General Mills: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, 2012, Pg. 1). We do this by many strategies.

For one, in 2010, we “reached its highest diverse employment rates since the corporation’s birth” with “19.4% of all General Mills employees as minorities” (General Mills: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, 2012, Pg. 2). We are also a part of many ranking lists showing its efforts with diversity, some being “Best Companies for Multicultural Woman”, “Best Places for LGBT Employees”, “50 Best Companies for Latinas”, and more (General Mills: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, 2012, Pg. 2).

(“Google Images”, 2013, “General Mills diverse employees”.)

Excellent Workplace

We are also known to be an excellent workplace that values their employees and customers. We have a fair attitude towards their employees. For example, we have great employee recognition. Our firm has a company blog that highlights good work by employees (General Mills: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, 2012, Pg. 5). By doing this, we have increased employee moral, which resulted in the employees continuing to do the work they’ve been doing because they feel wanted and needed.

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Because of their employee relations, our company has been listed on things such as Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For”, Financial Time’s “United Kingdom’s 50 Best Workplaces, and Canada’s Great Place to Work Institute’s “Top 75 Best Workplaces” (General Mills: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, 2012, Pg. 5).

Global Presence

As a company, we look good to the public because we are so well recognized since we are a globally known company. “General Mills is the world’s 6th largest food company and sells its products to over 100 countries” (General Mills: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, 2012, Pg. 7). By being this recognized, we look good to the public, we are well known and if we weren’t doing well as a company, then we wouldn’t be so large of a corporation.

We also support other brands internationally. As a company, we support brands in countries such as the United Kingdom, Venezuela, Argentina, China, and others (General Mills: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, 2012, Pg. 7). By doing this, we are getting our name out there and becoming more known to potential and current customers.

Financial Background

General Mills Success

General Mills is a company that has been growing over the years. When other companies struggled, General Mills thrived throughout the recession. The recession was regarded a blessing to the General Mills stock (Cohn 2009, par. 2).

The recession meant that more families stayed in to cook, and the number of families going out to eat decreased. Families ate more meals in, which meant that packaged food companies benefited. The marketer of cheerios, Pillsbury, Yoplait and Betty Crocker has become a stalwart of the Great Recession, thanks to increased spending, but also product innovation and its ability to capitalize on the trend toward in-home eating (York 2010 par. 2). The fact

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “General Mills meal kits.”)

that individuals are not eating out as much and are utilizing products in the U.S. food industry improves General Mills financial status.

Recovering in Sales

The company’s stock decreased similar to other companies, but it was not as bad as most companies, and General Mills was able to recover from the 26% decrease in stock (Cohn 2009, par. 4).

General Mills was able to recover due to quality advertising. They increased their Advertising and media spending 33% (York 2010, par. 2). Now Yoplait light sales grew, due to the promotions on healthy yogurt, and the side dishes and main dishes meal kit sales increased. It is easy for families to spend money on a meal kit, rather than going out (York 2010, par. 2).

History of Obesity

Obesity in America

Obesity has been a problem in the U.S. in the past, but has been especially problematic within the past few years. For example, just two years ago in 2011, every state had an obesity rate over 20% (Trogdon, Finkelstein, Feagan, & Cohen, 2012, Figure 2). This figure is shocking- it means that 1 out of every 5 people in America are obese, or have a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher.

The state with the lowest percentage obesity in America is Colorado with a percentage of 20.7%, and the highest being Mississippi, with a percentage of 34.9% (Trogdon, et al., 2012, Figure 2). This is a problem, because in Mississippi, it means that over 1 in 3 people are obese.

Childhood Obesity

Child obesity is another serious issue, because it means that our future is going to have more obese individuals if the trend continues. Childhood obesity has also been on the rise in the past few years. In 2003, the lowest percentage state of children in America with

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “General mills.”)

obesity was Utah with 8.5% and the highest was West Virginia with 20.9%. (Ogden, et al., 2013, Figure 4).These percentages increased dramatically just four years later in 2007, with the lowest percentage state of U.S. adolescents with obesity being Utah and Minnesota (tied) with 23.1% and the highest being Mississippi with 44.4%. In just four years, the state with the highest percentage of children with obesity in 2003 was still less than the lowest percentage state in 2007.

Another 2013 study showed that obesity is prevalent in children as young as the pre-school age. The figures showed that 1 in 8 pre-school children are obese in the U.S. today (Office, 2013, Figure 1). The increase of children with obesity is a huge problem that needs to be taken control of.

Recent Trends

As seen in the studies related to obesity in America and obesity in children, the rates of obesity are rising at a surprisingly high rate. Studies have shown that “obesity rates are at a record high” and “children continue to be inundated with marketing for foods high in fat, sugar, salt and calories” (Campaign, n.d., Para. 1).

It has also been noted that the recent trends of the increase in obesity rates have resulted into more health problems, a serious one being type-2 diabetes (Campaign, n.d., Para. 3). The recent trends of the obesity rate increase is leading to more health problems and is one of the reasons why it needs to be lowered.

Obesity Trends Related to Sugary Cereals

The obesity rate has increased for many reasons, with sugary cereals being one. It has been seen that, “ready-to-eat cereals are the fourth biggest source of added sugars in Americans’ diets, behind sugary drinks, desserts, and candy” (Wootan et al., 2012, Para. 5). The sugar in cereals is a contribution to obesity, especially in children, since “children ages 4 to 8 years old have a small allowance for calories from added sugars, about 12 grams per day” (Wootan, et al., 2012, Para. 5).

Here at General Mills, one of our cereals, “Wheaties Fuel”, has over 18 grams of sugar in a single serving (Torrisi, 2011, Para. 2). The amount of sugar in this type of cereal is 6 grams over the serving that young children should have in a day- and is only for one meal.

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(“Google Images”, 2013, “Percentage of children who are overweight or obese”.)

Other cereals that we have that have 12 grams or more of sugar include Basic 4 (13g), Fiber One Frosted Shredded Wheat (12g), Fiber One Nutty Clusters and Almonds (12g), Fiber One Raisin Bran Clusters (14g), Oatmeal Crisp Crunch Almond (16g), Oatmeal Crisp Hearty Raisin (19g), Raisin Nut Bran (14 g), and Total Raisin Bran (17g) (General Mills, Inc. (2013). “Big”, Para. 1).

The sugars in these cereals are way too high and cause health problems including obesity and type-2 diabetes. This is a problem many children eat sugary cereals, the rate of obesity in children and in America will likely increase if the trends of eating these sugary cereals keep increasing.

How cereal relates to a healthy lifestyle

Studies have shown that “obesity among children aged 6 to 11 has more than doubled in past 20 years, going from 6.5% in 1980 to 17% in 2006” (Roberts, Grey, 2009, para. 11). Obesity has become one of the leading causes of death in America. Cereals have played a role in childhood obesity, but the impact has been both positive and negative.

The positive impacts have come from companies such as General Mills, Kellogg’s, and other big name cereal producers taking the time to make cereal a healthy breakfast option. “ Kids who ate more cereal got more vitamin D, B-3, B-12, riboflavin, calcium, iron, zinc and potassium in their diets than kids who ate less cereal or none at all”(Fox News, 2013, para. 10). All of our Big G cereals have these vital vitamins nutrients and whole grains to help maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Eating cereal is also much healthier than eating nothing for breakfast at. All studies have proven that “Research confirms that breakfast is the most important meal of the day for children’s health, academic achievement, cognitive development and mental health. (School Breakfast, 2013, para 1). Children who do not eat cereal for breakfast can miss out on getting the vital vitamins and minerals into their body, or worse not eating any form of nutrients from breakfast. Lastly, the advertising that cereal companies do to children is both positive and negative.

The positive side of cereal ads talk about getting active and making children want to eat breakfast, but also maintain a healthy lifestyle by being more active in any area of life. Some companies use characters to market to children. Kellogg’s, for example, uses “Tony the Tiger”. The slogan “earn your stripes” has been used as a way of an incentive for children to get outside and play a game of basketball or any sport. Kellogg’s advertisement strategy was to see children become more active, instead of just playing inside all day, do nothing but watch television and playing video games.

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(“Google Images”, 2013, “kids eating healthy cereal”.)

Some advertisements can have negative effects, because of how the commercial or ad is made for children to view. Companies have targeted children as young as 2 years old because studies have shown that “Researchers found that the average American preschooler sees 642 cereal ads a year, and the vast majority of those ads are for sugared cereals.” (KABC, 2009, para. 4). These companies do not care about the health of the young children. They only care about getting the children hooked on their specific cereal. These companies not only target young children but make there cereals seem “cool” and better than the competition by advertising how delicious the cereal is and how eating cereal could cause them to be transported to another imaginary world filled with delicious cereal.

The problem with this lies in making of the cereal and the idea the advertisement is giving children. The message children are receiving is to just stay inside or go to this imaginary world and simply do nothing but eat cereal. This is shown by the Lucky Charms commercial; once kids take one bite of lucky charms they can go on a wild adventure of simply eating cereal all day. This is the complete opposite of what we need children to be doing in today’s society. Instead we should be focusing our advertisement on the wellness of children and getting children of all ages active.

Furthermore, studies have shown that “cereals marketed to kids have 85 percent more sugar, 60 percent more sodium and 65 percent less fiber than those aimed at adults”(KABC, 2009, para. 12). The cereals that are being advertised to children are not healthy. Instead, they are filled with sugars, salts and fake dyes. The negative impact cereals have on obesity is when children are eating cereal that only gives them extra sugars and no other vital nutrients. Not all cereals are like this though but “General Mills six of the ten least healthy cereals, markets to children more than any other cereal company” (Daily Finance, 2009, para. 2). Obesity is a major problem in America. More and more Americans are becoming obese each year. This can be stopped, an example being that we have been a large contributor to the children advertising scene but have seen the harsh effects it has on children and are trying to make our cereal healthier for everyone. All of our “top ten cereals in all will go on a diet, with the goal of reducing the sugar grams within to the mere single digits per serving. The reduction could prove substantial. For instance, the sugar in Cocoa Puffs could dip 25% lower than it was a few years ago”(Daily Finance, 2013, para. 3).

When healthy cereals are given to children it makes the world of difference, Instead of giving them extra sugars that simply hurt a child’s body. We need to be giving them nutrients that help their body and continue to maintain a healthy lifestyle. This will then transfers over into everything children do from work at school to sports at home.

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History of government involvement with child obesity

How America feels

According to a 2012 survey from Gallup, most Americans rate obesity as a "very serious problem," even more serious than smoking (Gallup, 2012, para. 1). According to the survey, 81 percent of the people Gallup asked rated America's obesity as "very serious," which has increased from the 69 percent in a 2005 poll (Gallup, 2012, para. 1). Clearly, obesity is an issue that Americans care about and is one that has a great impact American society.

Government Implications

All across party lines, people are in agreement about the fact that obesity is a problem. According to a survey done by Gallup, though, the difference is, is that Democrats are largely in favor of federal programs deal with obesity, whereas Republicans are not (Gallup, 2012, para. 7). Gallup cites that "79%" of Republicans and "89%" of Democrats see obesity as a "serious problem," and "27%" of Republicans and "82%" of Democrats see a serious need to have programs to address the obesity level (Gallup, 2012, “Majorities See”).

Under the Obama Administration, the Task Force on Childhood Obesity was created to help keep the children of America healthier, with the goal of reducing childhood obesity by 5 percent by 2030 (Let’s Move, retrieved Oct. 22, 2013, para. 2). In 2010, the task

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(Gallup, 2012, “How Serious a Societal Problem is Obesity?”)

force also published a report to the President on their recommendations to keep Americans healthier (Let’s Move, retrieved Oct. 22, 2013, para. 2).

In this report, they created a Dietary Guideline in 2010 that recommends what Americans should do to stay healthy by telling them what they should cut down on (White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, 2010, p. 24). One such change is to “reduce daily

sodium intake to less than 2,300 milligrams” (U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, 2010, p. X).

The report references the creation of the Joint Task Force on Media and Childhood Obesity in 2006 that set out to develop “voluntary standards” that help limit the advertising meant for children, but the task force was unable to establish a set of guidelines (White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, 2010, p. 29).

However, there has been certain laws in place for decades, such as the 1990 Children’s Television Act that regulates that advertisements per hour for children under 12 must be “10.5 minutes on weekends” and “12 minutes on weekdays” (Advertising Educational Foundation, 2013, para. 6). Advertisers also must obtain “licenses” that must be “renewed” for advertisements targeted at children under the age of 16 (Advertising Educational Foundation, 2013, para. 6). Currently, most cereal companies now are self-regulated.

Self-Regulation

Though the government struggled to ascertain these rules, in 2006, the Council for Better Business Bureau created the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) as a way to “self-regulate” the market (White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, 2010, p. 29). General Mills is a part of this group (White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, 2010, p. 29).

Our company, along with 16 other members, have agreed to the following points: that child-ads and games must promote a healthy “lifestyle,” that companies limit the unhealthy “third-party licensed characters” they may use when advertising, that companies cannot place their products in

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “Michelle Obama.”)

(“Google Images,” 2013, “Do CFBAI participants meet the criteria?.”)

“entertainment directed at children” and they must not advertise in schools (White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, 2010, p. 29).

The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) in 2009 created “guidelines” for advertisers, one being that advertisers cannot “mislead children,” which would include increased “popularity” or “exploiting a child’s imagination” (LoDolcle, Harris and Schwartz, 2013, p. 12).

Basically, an advertiser cannot take advantage of a child, but, according to the article, due to the number of advertisements even we have featuring our characters, such as the leprechaun from Lucky Charms, that display increased “emotions” towards the cereal, CARU’s guidelines are not being strictly enforced (LoDolcle, Harris and Schwartz, 2013, p. 12).

How General Mills feels about regulations

Our company has not been entirely cooperative with these regulations. Back in 2011, when the CARU’s standards were published, we called them “arbitrary, capricious and fundamentally flawed,” especially the section that states that all cereals companies produce should contain 7 or 8 grams of sugar, and if they do not, then that company should not be allowed to advertise (LoDolcle, Harris and Schwartz, 2013, p. 12).

While we have made comments like this, we have also made a pledge in 2009 to get ten of our cereals “into the single digits” when it comes to sugar content, according to an article from CBS News (2009, para. 1). This year, we have only five out of our ten cereals containing less than 10 grams of sugar, and of those five, only two are within CARU’s guidelines (Better Business, 2013).

Those two are Peanut Butter Toast Crunch and Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Cream, both of which are not nearly advertised as much as cereals like Honey Nut Cheerios, which contains nine grams of sugar per serving (Better Business Bureau, 2013, “Peanut Butter,” “Hershey’s” and “Honey Nut”). Overall, we are not achieving the goals or guidelines that we are supposed to be following.

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(“Google Images,” 2013 “Honey Nut Cheerios.”)

Our Current Advertising Campaign

Targeting Youth

Marketing to children is a common way advertisers market their product. However, some companies or brands market to children more frequently. One group that frequently markets to children are companies that sell cereal. Food marketers are interested in youth as consumers because of their spending power, their purchasing influence, and as a future consumer (Story, & French, 2004, pg. 1).

This has become a major concern due to the fact that a majority of the cereals marketed to children are neither healthy nor nutritious. According to, Journal of public health policy, Children in the United States view nearly 5500 food advertisements per year and 98 percent of those ads promote products high in fat, sugar, or sodium (Schwartz, Ross, Harris, Jernigan, Siegel, and others, 2010, pg. 60). Viewing numerous advertisements, which promote non-nutritious food, is harmful to young children.

The heavy marketing directed towards youth, especially young children, appears to be driven largely by the desire to develop and build brand awareness/recognition, brand preference and brand loyalty (Story, & French, 2004, pg. 3). By enforcing this at a young age, children will grow up with the brand, and try to get their parents to purchase the brand, in this case, the brand being a type of cereal. Implementing Media Outlets

Our company advertises through a variety of media outlets. Multiple techniques and channels are used to reach youth, beginning when they are toddlers, to foster brand-building and influence food product purchase behavior. These food marketing channels include television advertising, in-school marketing, product placements, kids clubs, the internet, toys and products with brand logos,

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “Advertising General

(“Google Images,” 2013, “General Mills marketing to children.”)

and youth-targeted promotions, such as cross-selling and tie-ins (Story, & French, 2004, pg. 1).

By covering all sources, children do not have a way to escape, and it becomes a way of life. For example, the General Mills have a website You Rule School. You Rule School is the kids’ link for this site and features the Trix rabbit and the Lucky Charms leprechaun leading kids through the Homework Free Zone schoolhouse of games and activities (Story, & French, 2004, pg. 6). This is a way advertisers influence brand awareness/recognition. Even when children are completing a fun activity online that is educational, they are being manipulated by cereal brands.

Is the exposure too much?

The fact that our company markets to children is alarming due to the fact that the cereal being promoted is high in sugar and fat content and is not a healthy breakfast choice for children. According to Journal of public health policy, Companies have pledged that at least 50% of advertising primarily directed to children will be for healthier foods promoting healthier lifestyles.

According to a scientifically validated nutrition profile model, 98% of children’s exposure to cereal advertising in 2007 was for less healthy brands (Schwartz, Ross, Harris, Jernigan, Siegel, and others, 2010, pg. 68). Children are being exposed to unhealthy cereal in large doses, much more than adults are.

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “General Mills marketing to children.”)

Advertising to Children

Our Policy

According to our website, we are currently evaluating “one-third” of the products we are advertising so that we can either change our advertising policy or get rid of those advertisements (General Mills, 2013, para. 3). We are also currently evaluating what is and what is not permitted when it comes to advertising to children under the age of 12 (General Mills, 2013, para 4). General Mills is also not going to permit advertising children to log on to social networking cites (General Mills, 2013, para 5).

Social networking scandals in the past

Back in 2012, our company, along with five other large corporations, was accused of illegally marketing products and “collecting data” from children under the age of 13 (Markowitz, 2012, para. 2). We were accused of encouraging minors to share their information as well as possibly even a photo with fellow users (Markowitz, 2012, para. 5).

Our company’s actions violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 that regulates how corporations can advertise to those under the age of 13 (Markowitz, 2012, para. 4). This is an issue that we will have to make sure to heavily regulate in our industry so that we are not breaking the law or our own ethical standards.

General Mills’ Child Advertising Campaigns

As previously mentioned, our company has made numerous pledges when it comes to advertising that we have not always entirely followed through with. We, along with other cereal production companies, pledged to limit advertising on “unhealthy products” as part of the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (Nordqvist, 2012, para. 2).

While we have started to make our cereals healthier, we have not been following through on our promises to advertise healthier products. Even though, in the past few years, General Mills has decreased their “advertising in children’s websites” by “43%,” we are not doing enough (Nordqvist, 2012, para. 12). We are still advertising our most unhealthy cereals the most to children (Nordqvist, 2012, para. 20).

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “General Mills Child Advertising.”)

(“Google Images,” 2013, “Lucky Charms Online Advertisements.”)

In 2011, we produced “four out of the five top brands” advertised on television to children (Harris, Schwartz, Brownell, Sarda, Dembek and others, 2012, p. 17). Our top two brands were Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms, according to Yale Rudd Center’s Cereal FACTS 2012 report summary (2012, “Cereals most”). Cinnamon Toast Crunch contains nine grams of sugar per serving, making it one of our unhealthier cereals, and Lucky Charms contains 10, making it one of our five most unhealthy cereals (Better Business Bureau, 2013, “Cinnamon” and “Lucky”).

Misplaced Advertising

Our products that are considered to be on the healthier side, like Cheerios, are being targeted to parents, while the children are receiving advertisements about our more sugary cereals (Nordqvist, 2012, para. 21). Christian Norqvist, in his article about sugary cereals being marketed to children in Medical News Today, cites Marlene Schwartz, one of the authors of Cereal FACTS, a report that looks at different cereal companies and their marketing strategies.

Schwartz claims that cereal companies have slightly increased how healthy cereals are and market those to adults, while the children receive advertisements featuring cereals with “56% more sugar, half as much fiber and 50% more sodium” than the cereals being marketed to their parents (Schwartz qtd. in Nordqvist, 2012, para. 23).

In order to follow the ethical standards we have set, we should start marketing our healthy cereals to not only adults, but children as well. We should also look into strategies to help make us more complacent with our marketing and nutritional standards.

Change in Marketing from Children to Parents

Marketing to Children

The problem with the way we, General Mills, advertises is that we market healthy cereals to adults and sugary, unhealthy cereals to children. According to Wootan & Ludwig (2012), “the vast majority (85%) of food products marketed to children continue to be too high in added sugars, refined grains, salt, and calories...” (Para. 8). This high percentage of advertising sugary cereals plays an important part in what children want to eat, because it’s what they’re accustomed to seeing.

Poussaint and Kanner (2005) reminded us that we had a campaign for sugary cereals including Trix, Cocoa Pebbles, and Lucky Charms. After the commercial, a public

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(“Google Images, 2013, “Cinnamon Toast Crunch advertising.”)

service announcement would be shown explaining the benefits of eating breakfast (Para. 2). This strategy is hypocritical because eating sugary cereals such as the ones General Mills is making does not have many benefits. However, healthier breakfasts do have benefits that these cereals do not have.

Marketing to Parents

We market to children and parents much differently. On advertising to parents, we tend to market the healthier cereals and food items towards them. On our website, General Mills Inc. (2013) we stress our mission, “To make lives healthier, easier and richer. Nourishing lives” (Mission. Para. 1). We claim that we make lives healthier by “delivering important nutrients and increasing people’s intake of whole grains” (Para. 2).

(“Google Images”, 2012, “General Mills Nourishing Lives”.)

We also state that our cereal is rich in vitamins, minerals, and key essential nutrients (Para. 8). The claims that we make are appealing to parents because by this, they are thinking that the cereals that they are giving to their children are healthy and provide important nutrients.

Another way that we market to parents is through social media. By our web site, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook pages, we make sure to reach out to parents and inform them about our products (Newman, 2013, Para. 2). We use these social networking sites to promote recipes that have been created using their brand of cereals.

For example, we posted recipes like “Crunchy Chicken Nuggets” (with the coating made from crushed Cheerios) and “Cinnamon Toast Crunch Fried Ice Cream” (Newman, 2013, Para. 11). By using this strategy of posting recipes with their products being used, we advertise kid-friendly meals to parents who could benefit from these recipes.

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Nutrition

Unhealthy Lifestyle

A major apprehension among individuals is that advertisements are prompting unhealthy eating habits and unhealthy lifestyles of Americans. According to Journal of public health policy, Marketing of unhealthy food products has been clearly identified as a contributor to the poor eating habits of United States youth (Schwartz, Ross, Harris, Jernigan, Siegel, and others, 2010, pg. 71). Children are consuming a large amount of sugar because a majority of children’s cereal does not have many nutrients. This may also affect their food choices for other meals of the day. Regularly feeding high-sugar cereals to children may increase their preferences and consumption of sweeter cereals overtime and potentially increase their preferences for highly sweetened foods overall (Harris, Schwartz, Ustjanauskas, Ohri-Vachaspati, & Brownell, 2011, pg. 76).

In addition, when children consume cereal that is high in sugar, they not only incorporate excessive amounts of sugar in their diet, they also tend to shy away from healthy food choices. According to a study comparing the consumption of cereal high in sugar, to the consumption of cereal low in sugar, children in the low sugar condition were significantly more likely to put fresh fruit on their cereal (54%0 compared with children in the high-sugar condition (8%) (Harris, Schwartz, Ustjanauskas, Ohri-Vachaspati, Brownell, 2011, pg. 74).

Nutritional Standards

The nutritional standards of cereal for children are not up to par. According to a study done by, Journal of public health policy, 86% failed to meet the ‘healthy’ criteria. These unhealthy cereals made up 98% of the total advertising exposure for children (Schwartz, Ross, Harris, Jernigan, Siegel, and others, 2010 pg. 65). According to the General Mills website, our company has specific guidelines for healthy dietary choices, and specific sugar guidelines. These guidelines are: 175 calories or less per serving, zero

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “General mills.”)

grams of labeled trans fat, or 175 calories or less per serving, supplies labeled one-half serving of food for increased consumption, less than 230 milligrams of sodium or less for cereal and snacks less than 2 grams of saturated fat, and zero grams of trans fat (General Mills, 2013).

Importance of Breakfast

However, breakfast is a very important meal of the day for children to consume. There is a consensus that children should eat breakfast every morning. Children who eat breakfast have healthier overall nutrition and lower BMI, and breakfast consumption may enhance academic achievement (Harris, Schwartz, Ustjanauskas, Ohri-Vachaspati, & Brownell, 2011, pg. 72).

Cereal is a meal that children are inclined to have, and this makes it tough on parents regarding what their children eat for breakfast. Because of the prevalent marketing of high-sugar cereals to children, many parents feel that they are faced with a choice between purchasing high-sugar children’s cereal versus having their child eat no breakfast at all (Harris, Schwartz, Ustjanauskas, Ohri-Vachaspati, Brownell, 2011, pg. 76). This decision hinders a child’s ability to function properly. Though, the main decision is based off of if the parent allows their child to buy a cereal that is high in sugar and fat. Children’s exposure ‘it remains the primary responsibility of parents to guide their children’s behavior’ (Schwartz, Ross, Harris, Jernigan, Siegel, and others, 2010, pg. 69).

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “Healthy

(“Google Images,” 2013, “Children eating cereal.”)

Response of Parents

Promoting Cereal

Even though children are the ones consuming the cereal, their parents are the ones who purchase the cereal and allow them to eat the high-sugar breakfast. On average, an American child was exposed to approximately 758 cereal advertisements on television. In comparison, adolescents saw an average of 417 cereal ads and adults saw 321 (Schwartz, Ross, Harris, Jernigan, Siegel, and others, 2010, pg. 65). The parents, or guardians of children are exposed to as many as 437 less cereal advertisements than their kids are. This should be an alarming figure, due to the fact that that the advertisements geared towards children does not promote healthy cereal. B&G Foods, Gerber, Nature Valley, Glucerna, Kashi did not have any cereals marketed primarily to children, and had significantly better nutrition profiles (Schwartz, Ross, Harris, Jernigan, Siegel, and others, 2010, pg. 65). It is rare to see a healthy advertisement over an advertisement that is aimed towards children, who are the main targets for advertisers.

High Amount of SugarThere has been an increasing awareness

on the amount of sugar in cereal, which has brought some concern to many parents. Some parents even went as far as to considering government intervention: “This should be against the law…they’re making money off of our kids” (Ustjanauskas, Eckman, Harris, Goren, Schwartz, and others, 2010 pg. 5). They did know that their children are exposed are exposed to food advertising and that it has an impact, but this awareness was limited (Ustjanauskas, Eckman, Harris, Goren, Schwartz, and others, 2010 pg. 3).

Most parents were unaware of the variety of media outlets that their children are exposed to, which market cereal. Parents were annoyed that marketing often makes their children demand certain foods and that its “fun and friendly appearance” can make viewers more vulnerable to its claims (Ustjanauskas, Eckman, Harris, Goren, Schwartz, and others, 2010 pg. 3).

Long term/Short term effects

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “Family eating breakfast.”)

(“Google Images,” 2013, “General mills.”)

Consuming sugary cereals, like the ones our company produces, can have a very negative effect on children and their health. Most of the cereals we produce and market toward children contain high amounts of sugar.

For example, Reese’s Puffs cereal contains 10 grams of sugar per 3/4 cup (Better Business Bureau, 2013, “Reese’s”). This is an extremely high number when considering children ages 4-8 should consume 12.5 grams per day, and pre-teens should limit theirs to 21 – 33 grams per day (Nall, 2013, para 2).

Consuming products like this on a daily basis can have negative effects, like weight gain, disease, and elevated blood pressure, at a young age, children should not be dealing with health issues as serious as these.

More Sugar/

/Children’s cereals on average tend to have more sugar than cereals marketed to adults (Hellmich, 2009, USA Today, para 1). It has also been found that children’s cereals tend to have more sugar than some well-known junk food desserts. “General Mills Wheaties Fuel has more sugar, 18.7 to 20 grams, than a Hostess Twinkie (17.5 grams)” (Pestano, 2011, Study findings, para 3). “The official recommendation is not to consume products whose sugar content exceeds 25% of total calories” (Greenfield, 2013, para 5), for example, General Mills’ cereal Cookie Crisp when “44% of the product’s total calories come from sugar” (Greenfield, 2013, para 5).

How they are made

/One leading cause as to why they are so unhealthy is because of the way sugary cereals are made. In order to turn the cereal into the recognizable shapes they are sold in, the cereal must undergo a food excursion process. “Basically the corn or wheat is ground, mixed with water, and then, with some heat and pressure applied, forced through a mold that sets the final shape. The high temperature and pressure involved basically strips away the grains’ nutrients. Beneficial unsaturated fatty acids and proteins like the amino acid lysine are dissolved and lost because the cellular structures that contain them are broken up by the machine” (Greenfield, 2013, para 4).

Genetically Modified Organisms

/Children’s cereals use genetically modified organisms (GMO) corn, and the long-term effects are still undetermined. There are many studies being conducted

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(“Google Images” 2013. “Bags of sugar”)

(“Google Images” 2013. “Genetically modified organisms.”)

to settle this matter, but until then there is no reason for food companies to worry about it. “Complicating the issue is the fact that there are no regulations that require food manufacturers to properly label products made from such ingredients” (Greenfield, 2013, para 7).

Effects

All of these health issues cause a short, and long-term effect to the human body. The effects of sugar intake are well documented, and much research indicated that it is not healthy.

Weight Gain

One effect of consuming sugary cereal is weight gain. “Sugar contains calories, but those calories do not fuel the body with long-term energy. The extra calories from sugary foods cause weight gain, especially when used over a sustained period of time” (Connell, 2011, para 2).

Our company’s cereals that target children have been criticized for having an excess amount of sugar, as stated earlier. This leads to childhood obesity, which is a serious effect of weight gain (Sharples, 2007, para 4).

Disease

Another effect is that sugary cereals are a contributor to disease. The long-term effect of the added sugars in these cereals contributes to diseases to people of all ages. Excess sugar also contributes to obesity, when contributes to diabetes. “The American Heart Association suggests that there is a correlation between diabetes mellitus, heart disease and stroke as a result of added sugars in the diet” (Connell, 2011, para 4). University of Maryland Medical Center states that diabetes is a long-term condition caused by excess sugar in the blood (University of Maryland Medical Center, 2011, para 1).

Type II Diabetes

Type II diabetes means that “the body does not make enough insulin or it can't use its insulin as well as it should. This causes too much sugar to build up in the blood, which is known as Hyperglycemia or high blood sugar. Research shows that many obese children and adolescents have impaired glucose tolerance, a condition that often appears before the development of type II diabetes” (Virginia Department of Health, 2013, para 2).

Unhealthy Lifestyle

The recent rise in type II diabetes in the youth is widely caused by the increase in unhealthy eating. Consuming cereals containing high sugar, like Cookie Crisp, on a daily basis is a big reason why it is prevalent in children. The Virginia Department of Health stated that, “an alarming fact is that children are exhibiting health problems normally

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associated with middle age. The accelerated onset of Type 2 diabetes is the result of modern-day lifestyle habits that include consuming too many high-fat calories and not getting enough exercise.”

Elevated Blood Pressure/Elevated blood pressure is a serious effect of sugary cereals. “Some food substances elevate blood pressure, and sugar is one of those detrimental substances” (Connell, 2011, para 3). High Fructose corn syrup, a type of sugar found in many popular General Mills cereals like Wheaties, Trix, Lucky Charms, Fiber One, Cheerios (A Calorie Counter, 2013, “Breakfast Cereal”), can put someone’s blood pressure in a high-risk zone. According to a study in the Journal of American Society of Nephrology, “Drinking 2.5 cans or more of non-diet soda per day--or consuming an equivalent amount of fructose from other foods--increases your risk of hypertension by at least 30 percent, the study found” (Gardner, 2010, para 2).

Consumer Demand

General Mills

We have a wide consumer basis, especially in the cereal production division. According to Advertising Age, 100 leading advertisers, the top selling cereal brands from July 2012 – 2013 out of the top 10, General Mills holds 3 of the spots, including the top selling cereal, Honey Nut Cheerios (Nestle, 2013, “Rank, cereal”).

Best Selling Brands

Cheerios/

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(Google Images. 2013 “Elevated blood pressure.”)

(“Google Images” 2013. “Cheerios”)

Our best selling and most demanded cereal brand is Cheerios, which is also “the most popular cereal brand family in U.S. stores” (Hunt, 2013, para 10). In fact, Cheerios has been General Mills’ best selling cereal brand since 1954 (Hunt, 2013, para 8).

1941 - “CheeriOats” first came on the market in /1951 – Cheerios became General Mills’ number one cold cereal 1997 – The Food and Drug Administration issued a claim that Cheerios could

lower the risk of heart disease 2000- “The Honey Nut Cheerios bee is finally given the name BuzzBee after a

nationwide naming contest for kids ages 5-12”(Cheerios, 2013, Our History)

Healthy Cereals /Certain nutrition labels steer consumers to choose healthier cereals, which ultimately increases the consumer demand for healthier cereals instead of the sugary alternative.

/For example, a Maine-based Hannaford Supermarkets uses a gold star rating system called Guiding Stars (The Washington Post, 2013, para 1-4). The more stars a product has, the healthier it is.

A study was done to test this system. “They compared data from 134 Hannaford grocery stores in the

Northeast against an equal number of similar stores across the country. During the first 20 months of the program, sales of no-star cereals fell in both groups: 13 percent at Hannaford stores and 10 percent at the other stores. Likewise, the shift to healthier cereals was slightly greater at Hannaford stores, compared with the others. The study’s authors said they believe the additional shift in sales was due to the influence of Guiding Stars” (The Washington Post, 2013, para 6).

Another study also has the same result that consumers prefer healthier cereals to sugary ones. Yale conducted a study, and found that children prefer less sugary cereals. There were 91 children chosen and half were given less sugary cereal, while the other half was given sugary cereal. The kids with less sugary cereal ate double what the kids ate who had the sugary cereal (Saltzman, 2010, para 1).

These results show that consumers are demanding healthier cereals instead of the sugary ones. As a company, we should take this information into account and market the less

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(“Google Images” 2013. “Healthy cereal”)

sugary products more, and the high sugar content ones less. This would be most beneficial for our company because this is what our customers are demanding.

Criteria

Criteria of the solutions will include brand loyalty – if long time consumers will continue to buy our product and stay faithful to our brand, nutrition – how nutritiously beneficial each solution would be to consumers, ethical marketing – how moral our marketing strategy is in each solution and competition with other brands -

Brand Loyalty Brand loyalty will look into how current consumers will react to each solution. Loyal consumers of General Mills have purchased our product for many years, therefore it is very important to keep their opinion in mind while coming up with a solution that may potentially alter their favorite cereal. We want to evaluate how faithful long time customers stay to our brand, and if they keep constant in their loyalty to us.

Nutrition

Nutrition is another major criteria. The key problem our company is dealing with is the issue of childhood obesity and how we play a part in it. Webster Dictionary defines nutrition as, “the process of eating the right kind of food so you can grow properly and be healthy” (Merriam-Webster, 2013, “Nutrition”). This is the foundation of how each solution will be evaluated regarding sugar content. Specifically we will focus on following the guidelines of the standards children’s food should have. Our solutions should deal with the concern of nutrition and how each one can positively fix the problem of childhood obesity and sugary cereals.

Ethical marketing

Ethical marketing will be viewed on all aspects of the way we advertise, specifically, to children. We will compare how cereals are currently being marketed to how the solution will adjust the present advertising strategies. Our company will also view how each solution and certain marketing approaches affects children.

Competition with other brands

/The last criterion is how each solution will or will not put General Mills ahead of our competition. As of 2012, Kellogg’s, whose

31(“Google Images” 2013. “Kellogg’s”)

brands of cereal include Special K and Frosted Flakes, is the leading cereal company, next is us, General Mills, after us comes Cereal Partners Worldwide, a collaboration of Nestlé and General Mills, then PepsiCo Inc, which is the Quaker brand (Culliney, 2012, para 1-4). As a company we want to make sure we are doing what is best for our consumers, as well as what is best for General Mills too.

Solution: Stop marketing to children all together

One solution to fix our problem is for us to stop marketing to children all together. This will eliminate the ethical problem of advertising sugary cereals to children and then move our focus from children to the average parent and what parents find necessary for children to have. We believe that children need a balanced breakfast such as “Ready-to-eat cereals are rich in important vitamins and minerals, yet lower in calories than many other breakfast options”(General Mills, 2013, Para. 1).

Striving to target our brands to adults will give us a greater public image in the eyes of the parents who are one of our largest consumers. “In 2008, General Mills leading the way—spent $156 million marketing to children”(PreventObesity.net, 2011, para. 8).

Ethical: We need to market our cereals as nutritious and healthy for parents instead of having cartoon figures aimed towards kids. This only teaches children to simply eat the cereal and do nothing else. We will be advertising the nutritious increases in our cereals so that parents and adults will be able to give their children and loved ones healthy cereals.

Nutrition: we are aware that we have played a role in childhood obesity. Although by no longer advertising to children we hope to greatly lessen our input to childhood obesity. Instead we aim for children to be eating a healthy nutritious breakfast everyday such as heart healthy Cheerios. Which are “Certified by the American Heart Association to lower cholesterol”(Cheerios, 2013, para. 3).

Instead of marketing to children, we will be marketing to the average parent through these processes: • Heart healthy increase • Lowering cholesterol • Increasing amount of vitamins and minerals

Brand Loyalty: This does not directly apply to stop marketing to children all together because it would completely alter and weaken our child marketing basis. Although we are changing many aspects of our company we still stand by the same priorities and ideals. The changes we are making are only here to help us give more to our customers and better improve parent satisfaction.

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Competition with other brands: One of our biggest competitors, Kellogg’s, advertises to children but implements physical activity in all of their advertising. An example of this how they use “Tony the Tiger” to appeal to children, In the advertisement Tony is always active and telling children to “Earn your Stripes” by playing outside and being active. We need to implement what Kellogg’s has done by having children be active in all our commercials but also add how nutritious and healthy our cereals are for parents/adults.

Solution: Maintain Current Practices

One solution to the obesity problem would be to allow our current work environment to continue to the way it is, which would entail not altering our marketing strategies or nutritional standards at all.

Brand Loyalty

This solution would benefit consumers the most, since our costumers already consume the cereal that we have and are loyal to it. So, fundamentally changing the cereal’s content could defer our customers from enjoying our brand.

Nutrition

Over time, we have significantly reduced the amount of sugars so that at least some of our cereals meet the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children’s guidelines of 10 grams of sugar per serving (Harris, “Cereal FACTS 2012: Limited,” p. 5).

The problem with this 10-gram standard, though, is that it goes against all of the promises that we have made in the past. In 2009, we made a pledge to have all of our cereal’s sugar within the “single-digits” of grams per serving (CBS News, 2009, para. 1).

Now, in 2013, half of our brands still contain ten grams of sugar per serving, including Cocoa Puffs, Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs, Lucky Charms, Trix and Chocolate Lucky Charms (Better Business, 2013, “Coca,” Reese’s,” “Lucky,” “Trix” and “Chocolate”). Our company is essentially lying to the populous, and that could ultimately hurt our reputation.

We have not delivered on our past pledges, and not delivering on them means that we are lying to the public. Therefore, doing nothing to improve our nutritional standards could end up hurting our image as well as our profits.

Ethical Marketing

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “General Mills Cereals.”)

In 2011, we spent over 228.8 million dollars on advertising just for child and family brands (Harris, Schwartz, Brownell, Sarda, Dembek and others, 2012, p. 17). The quarter that ended Aug. 25 showed that our company “reported a profit of $459.3 million, or 70 cents a share, down from $548.9 million, or 82 cents a share, a year earlier” (Tadena, 2013, para. 5). Our cereal and yogurt brands have actually been doing poorly this past year, so decreasing our marketing could severely hurt our profits

Overall, our profits from our cereal brands have not been doing as well as they used to be (Tadena, 2013, para. 3). Cutting our advertising could possibly hurt our company even more when it comes to our profitability, and our brand loyalty may not be strong enough to combat the advertising loss. That being said, we have not delivered on these promises; so maintaining our current practices may be difficult. While we claim to only market healthy cereals to children, in actual practice this tends to not be completely true.

In 2006, we signed a pledge with the CFBAI for all of our cereals to contain either 7 or 8 grams of sugar, otherwise we could not run ads for them (LoDolcle, Harris and Schwartz, 2013, p. 12). This has not been accomplished, with only two of our cereals actually within that limit (Better Business Bureau, 2013, “Peanut” and “Hershey’s”). Therefore, while there is a necessity for us to market our products, we are not doing what we promise, and we are not meeting the criteria to market our products ethically.

Competition with other brands

General Mills is one of the leading cereal producers and actually had higher profits than Kellogg’s in the last year due to “price promotions” in August (Gasparro, 2013, para. 13). According to Nathalie Tadena’s article the Wall Street journal, our CEO, Ken Powell, said “the company's sales growth in the latest period reflects healthy mix of gains from established brands, strong introductory shipments for new products and contributions from new businesses” (2013, para. 4).

Last month, Jim Murphy, the President of our cereal division, stated that "the number of cereal boxes sold in the U.S. has declined over the last three years…and frankly…other brands aren't doing enough innovation or advertising to keep the milk-and-bowl breakfast relevant" (Horrigan, 2013, para. 12).

Keeping up with our current practices would allow us to improve our falling profits as

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “General Mills vs. Kelloggs profits.”)

well as have the leading profits against our competitors again next quarter, which is an important factor in our company’s current development.

Conclusion

While this solution does help sustain our brand loyalty and our high grossing profits, we are also not addressing problems that have been in place for almost a decade. Therefore, change is needed.

Solution: Program to Educate Parents and Guardians

Proposed Solution

One solution to resolve the issue of our cereal’s high sugar content is to implement a program educating parents and guardians on what they are buying for their children.

/Similar to a parent program designed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, this program would be a four session, online training course. This would be designed for parents and primary caregivers to gain the knowledge of the nutrition content in General Mill’s children’s cereals and how it compares to the recommended daily intake. It would also inform caregivers of healthy alternatives General Mills has to offer instead of the high sugar products, like choosing Cheerios instead of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

/Each session would use informational activities to help parents learn skills to help their children and family members make more nutritious and educated choices. There will also be a session on how to get the family more physically active, and lessen TV, computer, and video game intake.

Online training is beneficial to caregivers, especially ones with busy schedules, like most modern day families. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute states that, “the beauty of having an online training to help you and other facilitators run the Parent Program is that you can do it at any hour of the day or night, go through it at your own pace, and don’t need to take time out of your busy work schedule” (2013, para 5).

Fit to Criteria

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(“Google Images” 2013. “Parenting education”)

Overall, the idea to create an educational program for parents and guardians fits with three out of the four criteria; loyalty to brand, ethical marketing and competition with other brands. This solution would be more beneficial than negative to our company because the only criteria that does not apply is nutrition.

Nutrition

This criterion does not apply directly to the solution of parent and guardian educational programs because the program does not change the nutrition of our products in anyway. It does, however, promote nutritional eating and education.

Loyalty to Brand

With the implementation of a caregiver’s educational program we would still keep our loyal and longtime customers. By doing this, we are not taking anything away from our product or changing any aspect of it, we are only adding to what we have already established. This program is an added bonus for our longtime customers, and if this program is something they do not want, they are not forced to view it.

Ethical Marketing

This educational program will promote our company in a positive, and ethical way. The main purpose for this plan is to educate caregivers on what their children are eating. We are promoting a healthy lifestyle for children, all while doing so progressively.

Competitors

This program is not one any of our competitors have done before. We are paving the way for a new approach to view healthy eating. This is beneficial to our company, because we will be the first to introduce this idea in the cereal market, which could improve our company’s image as well as our profits.

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“Go Big G”

In order to improve the health of General Mills customers, and to promote a healthy lifestyle, General Mill will launch the all new children’s health campaign “Go Big G.” This campaign will be to promote being active, eating nutritious food, and living a healthy lifestyle. The “Go Big G” campaign will be labeled on General Mills cereal boxes, on the website, on television, or any type of media outlet that General Mills advertises on.

According to a study done in New Orleans, a mass media campaign was out to promote walking and eating fruit and vegetables (Beaudoin, Fernandez, Wall, Farley, 2007, pg. 1). After the campaign was advertised across television, radio, and bus and street signage, the people had an overall better attitude towards being active and eating healthy food (Beaudoin, Fernandez, Wall, Farley, 2007, pg. 1). This is a great example how a new campaign geared towards being active, eating nutritious food, and living a healthy lifestyle can change the viewpoint of many individuals.

The goal of implementing the “Go Big G” campaign is to motivate to live a healthy lifestyle by be active by making nutritious food choices. The campaign will include children playing sports, being active, and re-fueling by eating healthy meals. This will show children that balancing exercise and healthy food leads to nourishing lifestyle.

Brand Loyalty

So far, General Mills already has the “Big G,” which means that those cereals labeled “Big G” are made with whole grain General Mills (Big G Cereals, 2013). General Mills already taken the correct steps in order to promote whole grain, which is important in a diet. However, there is nothing on the General Mills website or cereal boxes that promote exercise. By adding onto the “Big G” brand, and creating the “Go Big G”

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “active children”)

campaign, our company will be promoting an overall healthy lifestyle, which is a very encouraging message for young children.

Competitors

To compare, one of the other leading cereal brands is Kellogg Co. After logging onto Kellogg’s website, there is a section labeled Nutrition. As soon as you click on Nutrition an image of kids playing soccer emerges (Kellogg Co, 2011). This emphasizes the importance of being active, and how it plays a role in the overall factor of Nutrition.

If one were to log onto the General Mills website, he or she would not see a section labeled Nutrition. Furthermore, after the “Go Big G” campaign is implemented there will be a section on the General Mills website that will provide images of active children and how they refuel their bodies with the proper nutrition. The healthy balance of being active and eating right will be a great way to market in a positive way to children.

The steps to implementing the solution will follow:1. Immediately logging onto the General Mills website, there will be images of

children running, playing sports, and being active.

2. When commercials of and General Mills cereal is played, the “mascot” of the cereal will be shown being active. For example, Trix the rabbit, the bee from Honey Nut Cheerios, the leprechaun from Lucky Charms will be displayed playing soccer, playing jump rope, running a race, etc.

3. The company will have a “Go Big G” team that will be at sporting events, festivals, and conferences, which will have obstacles courses, games, and sports for children to play.

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(Google Images,” 2013, “General Mills mascots”)

Applying the” Go Big G ”campaign to criteria:

Brand loyalty- Consumers are already familiar with the “Big G” label that is labeled on General Mills cereal boxes, which contains whole grain cereal. The “Go Big G” campaign puts an active spin onto the campaign, which markets an overall healthy lifestyle.

Nutrition- This campaign ensures that with the proper nutrition from the cereal, children will have more energy to be active and exercise.

Ethical marketing- The Bee from Honey Nut Cheerios, the rabbit from Trix cereal, and the other faces of particular cereals are how children recognize the brand. By seeing their favorite characters engage in activities, they ay be more inclined to do so. The “Go Big G” campaign influences children to be active and exercise.

Competition with other brands- Kelloggs is a major competitor of General Mills. Kelloggs’ website discusses nutrition and how eating right and eating breakfast is good for a balanced diet (Kellogg Co, 2011). The “Go Big G” campaign from General Mills goes above and beyond their competitors to demonstrate that nutrition and exercise is essential to a healthy life.

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(“Google Images,” 2013, “active children”)

Solution: Lower Sugar Content

Proposed Solution

One solution to the problem of cereals being too sugary is to simply lower the amount of sugar in our cereals. As mentioned earlier, children between the ages of 4 and 8 are only supposed to have 12 grams of sugar per day (Wootan, et al., 2012, Para. 5). If we were to re-create every brand of cereal that is over 12 grams, then this standard would be met.

In order to fix this solution, we should reduce the amount of sugars in their cereals. A maximum of 1 g of sugar per serving size should be the standard for all of our cereals. With that being said, we should make efforts to reduce sugars in our 7 cereals that are over 12g of sugar. Again, these cereals are Basic 4 (13g), Fiber One Raisin Bran Clusters (14g), Oatmeal Crisp Crunch Almond (16g), Oatmeal Crisp Hearty Raisin (19g), Raisin Nut Bran (14 g), Total Raisin Bran (17g), and Wheaties Fuel (18g) (General Mills, Inc, 2013, Big).

Past Efforts

We as a company have taken somewhat of an initiative to lower sugars in our cereals. In 2005, we tried to “set the goal of taking out 10% of something on the bad list, such as sodium, sugar, fat or calories, or adding 10% of something beneficial, such as vitamins, fiber or whole gran” (Jargon, 2011, Para. 6).

By doing this, we were able to get most of our cereals down to 10g of sugar (or less) per serving (Jargon, 2011, Para. 12). However, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest Margo Wootan states, “...since a serving size is only 30 grams or less, a third of that serving is still sugar” (Jargon, 2011, Para. 13). Although it is 1/3 sugar, our product is still under the daily 12g for children 4-8, so cereals with this amount of sugar are still reach our goal.

Health Movement

Within the past few years, consumers have been health-conscious and have been looking to purchase healthy products. For example in 2011, ‘...56% of [General Mills’] sales came from products that the company categorizes as “better for you”’ (Jargon, 2011, Para. 21). Because of this movement, we as a company would benefit in reducing sugar in cereals to appeal to the health-conscious consumers, which is on the rise today.

We took this approach into consideration earlier this year with the reduced-calorie Yoplait Greek 100. With the selling of this product we brought in $150 million in sales, which resulted in a net sale growth of 8% (Abrahamian, 2013, Para. 3 &7). By having this low-calorie yogurt, consumers saw this as appealing and resulted in an increase in revenue for General Mills.

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Competitors

In 2007, our competitors Kellogg Co. reduced the sugar in their cereals, as well. For example, their brands of cereal Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, and Corn Pops were all in between 15-16g of sugar before the reduction. After Kellogg Co. decided to reduce the amount of sugars, the amount was in between 10-12g per serving in each cereal (Jargon, 2011, Para. 16). Since our competitors are taking notice of the health movement, it would be wise if we did the same to keep up with the improving health of cereals.

(“Google Images”, 2012, “Kellogg Froot Loops Apple Jacks Corn Pops”.)

Strategy

With changing the ingredients and reducing the amount of sugar in cereals, the taste becomes an important factor. However, there are simple ways to make the cereal still taste good while still making it more nutritious. For example, food scientists can make reduced-sugar cereals taste the same by adding natural flavors instead of actual sugar (Jargon, 2011, Para. 7).

Another way that scientists reduce the sugar is by changing “...the placement of the sugar from within the puff or flake to a coating around it” which is said to “change how your palate receives the sweetness” (Jargon, 2011, Para. 7). This will allow the piece of cereal to have less sugar because there will only be added sugar on the actual cereal piece, as opposed to within it.

Fit to Criteria

Overall, the strategy to reduce the amount of sugar in all cereals over 12g of sugar fits with the four criteria faithfulness to the brand, nutrition, ethical marketing, and competition with other brands. This strategy would be beneficial to our company because it fits with all of these aspects.

Faithfulness to the Brand

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With the change of lowering the sugar content in high sugar cereals, we are still staying faithful to their brand. Again, our mission is “To make lives healthier, easier and richer. Nourishing lives” (General Mills Inc., 2013, Mission. Para. 1). With this being said, the strategy of lowering the amount of sugar still supports our goal of nourishing families and providing them with a healthy lifestyle.

Nutrition

By using the strategy to lower sugars in our cereals, we are obviously fulfilling the criteria of making our product more nutritious. As mentioned, our goal is to reduce each of our cereals to 12g of sugar or less per serving. By doing this, we as a company will be at the 12g mark of daily sugar allowance for children ages 8-12. This way we cannot be criticized for providing children with over their daily allowance of sugar.

Ethical Marketing

We will be able to have more ethical marketing if we reduced our sugar content in our cereals. Since sugars will be lowered, it would make it more ethical to market to children because we will not be marketing cereals that are over a child’s daily intake of sugar to kids, directly.

Competition with other brands

Lastly, with the goal to reduce sugars in our cereals, we will be able to compete with other cereal companies. As mentioned earlier, our competitor, Kellogg Co. reduced sugars in their cereals in 2007. For cereals like Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, and Corn Pops that were originally between 15-16g of sugar, Kellogg Co. reduced the sugar content in these cereals to between 10-12g (Jargon, 2011, Para. 16). If we were to take a similar approach and reduce sugars in our cereals, we would be able to compete with Kellogg Co. with the idea of reducing sugars.

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Our Recommendation

After deciding if each proposed solution fit to each of our criteria, we recommend that General Mills lowers the sugar content in cereals over 12g of sugar per serving. This would be the best option for us to take, because lowering the sugars to 12g per serving will limit health issues such as obesity relating to consumption of our products, without completely altering our product.

By using this strategy, we can improve the health of our products while still fulfilling each of our four criteria. We stay faithful to our brand because of our movement to becoming more healthy, maintain nutritional standards because we are lowering the sugars, being ethical in our marketing because our product will reflect our healthy marketing, and will stay in the competition with other brands because we are reducing our sugars which many other brands are doing today.

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