Post Foods Canada is the manufacturer of the iconic cereal brands Shreddies, Honeycomb, Sugar Crisp, Alpha-Bits and many others. Shreddies is in over 20% of all Canadian households and has strong distribution at retailers across the country. Honeycomb, Alpha-Bits and Sugar Crisp have been loved by both moms and kids for over 40 years.

The Canadian Hockey League (CHL) represents the three Canadian-based major junior ice hockey leagues (OHL, WHL and QMJHL) for players 16 to 20 years of age. Players in this league work toward being drafted to NHL teams. The CHL has averaged almost 10 million fans over each of the last five seasons, more than all of the other professional leagues in Canada. Hockey is Canada’s favourite sport, and Shreddies is a truly Canadian cereal, making this the perfect partnership.

The campaign objectives were to increase multiple purchases across Post Foods Canada brands, drive incremental purchases among current and non-users as well as develop a Facebook fan community for Shreddies.

Between October 2012 and January 2013, Post Foods Canada and the CHL collaborated to bring Canadians an exciting collectible campaign with an equally exciting contest overlay.

For the partnership, Post Foods transformed boxes of Family Size Shreddies, Honeycomb, Sugar Crisp and Alpha-Bits into Collector’s Edition cereal boxes, each prominently featuring one of 12 top-tier CHL goalies on front of pack – creating an incentive for consumers to purchase multiple boxes.

Twenty-four unique cut-out CHL player hockey cards were created and distributed evenly across the 12 different Collector’s Edition cereal boxes. Consequently, consumers who collected all dozen boxes ended up with two complete sets of hockey cards.

For greater impact in-store, Post Foods traded in its regular cardboard stock for a high-gloss white stock to help make the featured goalies jump off the shelf. In-store also featured pallet displays to further create awareness of the promotion.

Consumers were also driven to the Shreddies Facebook page where they could enter for a chance to win a trip for four to the 2013 MasterCard Memorial Cup – which included roundtrip airfare, hotel accommodation, four premium seats to the Memorial Cup and $500 in spending money. To enter, they were asked to “like” the page and complete a contest entry form.

The program marketing included on-pack and in-store messaging, grocery flyer advertising, an e-blast to the Post Foods database, a sell sheet detailing the program for store merchandisers and banner ads on all CHL assets, including the Ontario, Quebec and Western Hockey League pages. The creative featured an ice rink background and highlighted the CHL player hockey cards. The promotion was part of the overall sponsorship program which included CHL broadcast, in-arena sampling of Shreddies, rink boards, in-ice logos and Jumbotron video boards.