When Bad News Turns Into Good Advertising

Today, Kellogg's announced that it would either make kid's cereal healthier, or drop its ads. What's it mean?

Well, after years of complaints about the sugary nature of cereal one of the largest makers of that cereal has acquiesced and admitted that the stuff they were selling, and the way they were selling it was not-as-healthy as their marketing would have you expect. That's big. It is a giant step for a company reliant on the misdirection afforded by great advertising to sell their sweetened and toasted corn to a nation of excited children. Kellogg's is saying that their detractors have a point. That their cereal has been marketed in a way that makes kids (and their parents) feel that the food healthier than it is.

But the amazing part of this story isn't that Kellogg has been doing something wrong, it's that they're now going to do something right.

They've been able to flip the script and make their current move to make healthier food and better ads seem noble. They aren't the bad guys looking to surreptitiously make your children less healthy, they're the good guys who realized that something wasn't right and dag-gum-it they're going to make good by their customers. For the children, y'know.

The lesson to be learned is that every motion your company makes has the opportunity to shape the way people think about you. What you do and how you talk about yourself plays into the feelings that your customers (and potential customers) get when they think about doing business with you.

And AdSymetrix can help. Whenever you mention your company, place an ad or hand out a business card, AdSymetrix can show you just how those encounters matter to your bottom line. Simply tag your ad, or in this case, Press Release, and let AdSymetrix track and monitor the responses.