Honey Nut Cheerios dominates was showing signs that it was losing relevance with Canadians. Agency Cossette identified that the brand needed to re-establish an emotional connection with consumers by aligning itself with a cause that people could get behind.

The team discovered that the declining bee population was the third greatest concern to its core and secondary targets: boomers and millennials. Who better than a brand that uses real honey and whose mascot is a bee to lead the charge on this cause?

The brand and agency set out to connect with consumers by taking interest in the wellbeing of honeybees. Not only would Honey Nut Cheerios use emotion to help educate consumers on the current health of the honeybee but also provide them with a way to help make a difference. The idea was to give wildflower seeds to Canadians so that they could plant their very own bee haven. The goal was to distribute 35 million wildflower seeds, one for every Canadian.

To draw attention to the disappearing bees, the team removed the beloved bee mascot from the Honey Nut Cheerios box for the first time in the brand's history.

The #BringBackTheBees campaign kicked off just before spring, which is planting season in Canada. While the limited edition boxes made their way to grocery stores around the nation, in a fully co-ordinated effort the team also took the bee off of the brand's out-of-home and digital ads, and created a touching online video that showed real clips of humans helping animals. Honey Nut Cheerios then urged people to do the same for the bees.

All elements drove to a website where people could not only learn more about the issues facing the bees and how important they are to our very survival, but people could also request a pack of free seeds.

From Time magazine to NBC, Facebook to Twitter, commuter radio to breakfast television, people across North America, not just Canada, were talking about Honey Nut Cheerios and the missing bee.

Within just 10 days, 35 million seeds were distributed through the website, two months sooner than projected. Honey Nut Cheerios has now increased its goal to plant 100 million seeds. The campaign generated over 200 online and offline news stories, 250 million social impressions and over four million video views. All in the first 10 days.