OK, what's the Cereal Revolution? I'm not peddling cereal nor am I trying to improve cereal. This new blog is using cereal as a foundational principle of innovation, creativity and variety for the content posted.
I'm a marketer primarily for B2B technology companies. (You can read my LinkedIn profile here.) More specifically, cybersecurity startups. I'm pushing myself to better identify innovation and coolness in Marketing, in brands, and things that stand out in different industries like technology, music, sports, gadgets, reading glasses, influencers and even cereal... so, hopefully it provides people a good read, and stimulates some cool ideas that are helpful, entertaining or perhaps both.
The reality I've struggled with is I haven't always taken the time I've really needed to proactively seek and find cool things. Leading a Marketing function in a startup is not just time-consuming, its often all-consuming. I've been so focused on the job, that I haven't bothered to foster the creativity and innovation that is necessary in the Marketing discipline at its foundation. So I've decided to make it a priority to find time to extract new ideas, concepts, designs and strategies so that I can share them here and potentially put them into practice myself.
How am I prioritizing this and who cares? Well, building content, and writing is the most logical way for me to do this. I'm not an Instagram model, I don't have a selfie stick and I'd prefer to publish something substantive. For much of my career, content creation in some form - web site pages, product briefs, press releases, white papers, PowerPoint prezo's, video narratives - is something I do, something I enjoy and something I need to continually hone and improve upon. So I'll be sharing some things that I think are rad and worthy of identifying and contextualizing, and other things I'm trying to make sense of through simply sharing them.
As for the connection to cereal - I was watching the 2020 election / results on election night, and I found it exhausting and stressful. Plus I was starving at 11 pm. During this late-night hunger strike, I sought out a soothing mouthful of Cinnamon Oatmeal Squares. Which was delicious.
I thought to myself, unless human / consumer error is introduced, (it goes stale, you used spoiled milk, you have mixed one cereal with another in a Tupperware container, etc.) cereal literally does not usually let you down. And I've always believed anything oat-based is healthy.
From an entrepreneurial standpoint also, I've always focused my skills and energy into startups. You could consider building businesses from the ground-up a serial characteristic. Sort of giving it away as a play on words but you knew this already.
Back to cereal seriously - what other packaged food can you make that claim about - that it doesn't let you down? I for one appreciate the innovation in this category, and I think it speaks to the need to more broadly admire what goes into packaging products of any type, and with something like cereal, how brands have evolved it and also transcended time.
I think back to when I was a child, grocery shopping with my mom and brother at Almac's in Barrington, RI, and the absolute win was to badger my mom just enough via complaining / making a scene to get a box of "junk cereal" thrown into the cart. I'm talking Cookie Crisp, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes, or god forbid one of the "monster cereals" like Count Chocula or Boo-Berry...and that box of cereal was gone in two days or less. Every ounce of sugary awesomeness tasting great bite by bite.
On the one hand, you can make the case for innovation applied to marketing and advertising cereal products directly to kids to hook them on it. I do agree is slightly deceitful given the child obesity problem we have in the U.S. to hook kids into non-nutritional foods. Either way, man, "junk cereal" was a great treat, and I will be using cereal as a measuring stick and often as an anecdote in some of the work on this blog - not always, but where its applicable.
Finally, I'm going to make a recommendation to close out every post. It will simply be something found as cool, or even helpful.
My first recommendation for anyone in the world of Marketing, or even someone who owns their own business, is Authority Marketing by Rusty Shelton. The book focuses on establishing authority to build your brand - whether its a large brand or you are starting a business - as a way to differentiate yourself through becoming a thought leader.
In essence what I take away from it is that its not always about the brand - its about leadership and expertise within a domain that help drive brand awareness. Not necessarily the brand itself.
Thanks for reading. I look forward to engaging with you. Hope you'll visit again for my next post!
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