Dive Brief:
- General Mills announced a new social-first sketch comedy series that will promote multiple brands under the packaged foods giant’s portfolio, per details shared with Marketing Dive.
- “The Snacktime Sketch Show” runs four episodes, each with a different comedic target. The premiere, dropping Oct. 5, parodies reality TV hit “Love Island” while later weekly installments take aim at everything from corporate boardroom culture to rogue artificial intelligence.
- The content was developed with Deadpan Media, the brainchild of writer Judah Miller and producer Alex Panagos, and spotlights products including Totino’s, Gushers and Nature Valley, among others. General Mills is publishing the series across its brand social pages and a @SnackTimeSketchShow account for reach.
Dive Insight:
General Mills is taking a stab at “Saturday Night Live”-style sketch humor with branded content tailored for social media. The short-form series aligns with a larger trend of CPG marketers embracing social-first strategies as they try to reach young audiences like Gen Z and account for a decline in traditional mass media. General Mills is positioning the effort as a way to boost engagement and build equity for offerings it described as the “unsung heroes” of the snack aisle.
“We know that sketch comedy is one of the fastest-growing spaces on social media, and snacks are already a cultural staple. So, we thought — why not bring the two together?” said Blake Holman, senior director of marketing excellence at General Mills, in a statement shared with Marketing Dive. “By teaming up with some of the sharpest minds in comedy, we’ve created content that’s funny, fresh, and snackable in every sense of the word. It’s a new way to connect with fans, celebrate our brands, and prove that laughter is better with snacks.”
“The Snacktime Sketch Show” boasts variety, with four episodes of varying length that focus on different concepts and showcase an array of General Mills brands. The first installment, “Snack Island,” cribs heavily from “Love Island,” down to an EDM theme song and Scottish comic narrator. Rather than depicting regular people chasing romance in an idyllic but isolated villa, each of the characters on “Snack Island” represents a General Mills product. High levels of drama typical to “Love Island” ensue as cast members pursue the same love interests and new entrants shake up the house dynamic over the course of the 6-minute short.
Future episodes lean heavily into cringe humor (“Corporate Meltdown,” which spotlights Totino’s Pizza Rolls), satirize house-flipping shows (“Remodel or Remarry”) and take digs at current technology trends (“Crisp AI”). General Mills is distributing the series through a dedicated @SnackTimeSketchShow hub, as well as through brand and talent handles on platforms including YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. The company plans to put paid media behind the assets.
General Mills has said it will ramp up marketing activity as it vies to return to growth in a difficult consumer environment. The company saw a 3% year-over-year slide in net sales for the fiscal quarter ended Aug. 24, with organic volumes also down over the period.
Prior social-first campaigns have garnered traction and bolstered performance for General Mills brands, such as a Gen Z-targeted “Must Cinnadust” push from Cinnamon Toast Crunch that debuted in June. General Mills has cited “Must Cinnadust” as an example of how its revamped marketing approach is working, with other brands also seeing momentum from the social-first pivot.
“We launched new, social-first media campaigns on some of our biggest brands, including Cheerios, Pillsbury, and our Fruit Snacks franchise, and we continued to see improved ROIs on our media investment, driven by advanced, data-driven marketing capabilities,” said General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening in prepared remarks around the September earnings report.
