What it had to solve
A famously cheeky cereal in a wholesome category, launching a new Salted Caramel flavour at an adult audience that grew up on the brand's jokes.
How it works
A 20-second film by Merman's Juliet May: a couple kisses, he whispers 'Could life get any better?', she pulls a bedside lamp that flips the mattress and swaps him for a bowl of Crunchy Nut as the jingle lands — first of a series on VOD, TikTok and Instagram.
What it did
The report notes it is the first time the iconic strapline was sung in decades of advertising, with the series positioned to push taste credentials for adults; no performance figures were given.
Background
Crunchy Nut's advertising problem was abundance: the brand already owned one of cereal's most famous lines, 'The trouble is they taste too good', but it had never been sung. Leo Burnett UK's answer for the Salted Caramel launch was 'Obsessed' — turning the strapline into 'an irresistibly catchy jingle - an audio meme' for the first time in the line's decades of use.
The 20-second opening film, directed by Merman's Juliet May, is bedroom farce: a couple kisses, the man whispers 'Could life get any better?', and the woman reaches for a bedside lamp that doubles as a lever — flipping the mattress and swapping the love of her life for a bowl of Crunchy Nut. She smiles; the jingle lands. Cereal obsession beats romance, and the brand's taste claim rides inside the joke.
Kellogg's marketing manager Sarah O'Brien framed the strategy as leaning into 'the naughty side of the brand' to engage adult audiences through comedy, while executive creative director Mark Elwood aimed to 'crash Crunchy Nut's iconic line into pop culture'. 'Obsessed' was the first of a series of films following a fanatic's all-encompassing desire for the cereal, rolling out on VOD, TikTok and Instagram.
Why it lands
The brand's biggest asset was already in its mouth: a decades-old strapline everyone knows, now suddenly singable.
Bedroom farce pushed the famously cheeky tone to a new level, aimed squarely at adults rather than the cereal aisle's usual audience.
The mattress-lever swap dramatises 'obsession' in one visual joke — no dialogue needed to land the premise.
Twenty seconds, meme-shaped and built for VOD, TikTok and Instagram rather than a single TV slot.
What you can take
An audio meme outlives a visual gag: setting a brand's line to an insufferably catchy tune turns an archive asset into pop culture that platforms like TikTok can carry.
Since then
The 20-second film was the first of a series due to launch over the following weeks across VOD, TikTok and Instagram, supporting the Salted Caramel launch; the report gives no post-launch results.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE