• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, December 9, 2014

Having succeeded in boosting sales of Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch with marketing appeals to nostalgic Millennial adults, General Mills is now reviving a cereal brand that had its heyday in the late 1990's. 

The company has announced that French Toast Crunch, launched in 1995 and discontinued in the U.S. in 2006, is now back in some U.S. stores, and will be available nationwide again as of January.

It seems that U.S. fans of the toast-shaped, maple-flavored cereal have continued to implore General Mills to bring back the cereal, creating a petition and a Facebook page dedicated to the cause, which is currently showing nearly 9,000 "likes." In some cases, they have even been paying big bucks to order boxes of the cereal from Canada, where it has continued to be sold. 

"We have been overwhelmed by the consumer conversations, requests and passion for the cereal to come back," Big G marketing manager Waylon Good summed up in the company's blog. 

General Mills retained the brand's original taste, although upping the whole grains and reducing the sugar, Good told Associated Press.

The marketing for the revival also makes the most of young adults' dual love affair with nostalgia and irony.

It features Miss Cleo, known for pitching her telephone psychic services on TV during the ‘90s. In a 30-second TV spot, Miss Cleo demonstrates her powers by intuiting that a female client has silverware, including a spoon — which she predicts will be used to scoop up French Toast Crunch. 

That video and images of Miss Cleo are also being employed in promotions on FrenchToastCrunchisBack.com, which actually links into the Tumblr site of sister brand Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and on CTC's Facebook and @CTCSquares accounts. 

The news about the brand's comeback is also generating buzz on Facebook at #frenchtoastcrunchisback, currently showing numerous posts by radio stations, among others. 

Earlier this year, General Mills reported realizing a 7% jump in sales for CTC in a single quarter as a result of adding more cinnamon to that 30-year-old brand, and investing in a major campaign to win back adult Millennials and introduce the cereal to a new generation of kids.

That followed the company's success in significantly boosting sales of Lucky Charms since it began national advertising specifically targeting adults — who make up more than 40% of the brand's customer base — in early 2013. 

Lucky Charms's sales jumped more than 14% by June 2013, and were up 3% in General Mills's fiscal 2014 ended in August 2014, even as sales of its Big G cereal brands overall were flat for the year (and down 2% in the prior fiscal, part of the overall cereal category's ongoing declines). Lucky Charms's latest adul TV spot features a young adult couple squabbling over the marshmallow charms in a box of the cereal. 

Similarly, General Mills has pumped up the flavors of Cocoa Puffs and Trix and promoted them to nostalgic adults as well as kids. And in addition to introducing an added protein line and going GMO-free with Cheerios, General Mills has been using its own vintage TV commercials as one creative approach within its aggressive ad campaigns for the nation's largest-selling brand. 

Nor is General Mills alone. The current TV spot for Kellogg's Froot Loops features Millennial parents snacking on the cereal while playing a vintage video game, after the kids are in bed.