As break­fast cere­al con­sump­tion is report­ed­ly on the decline in the U.S., one brand is hop­ing to appeal to kids with online sto­ry­books and new box­es that can be used to cre­ate relat­ed char­ac­ters. And, as some cere­al brands lean on nos­tal­gia to reignite their fan bases, the brand in ques­tion, Kix, has also teamed up with a child star from the 1980s to per­haps also appeal to moms who grew up watch­ing “Punky Brew­ster”.

Cere­al brand Kix has launched new cere­al box­es with relat­ed online sto­ry con­tent and, as a result, it says it has teamed up with “Punky Brew­ster” actress Soleil Moon Frye to “help par­ents inspire learn­ing, imag­i­na­tion and break­fast-time fun.”

But, with reports emerg­ing that America’s love affair with break­fast cere­al may be over as con­sump­tion declines, this con­tent mar­ket­ing effort from Kix may also be to con­vince par­ents to recon­sid­er an old sta­ple.

In a press release, Kix says it wants “to offer fam­i­lies today even more rea­sons to enjoy this whole­some prod­uct from the inside out.” As a result, Kix says its new box­es “fea­ture unique pop-out char­ac­ters designed to be used with Kix Adven­tures online sto­ry­books to bring par­ent and child togeth­er through cre­ative play.”

By punch­ing out per­fo­rat­ed shapes from the box­es, Kix says kids can assem­ble char­ac­ters and objects. Accord­ing to the brand’s web­site, kids can make any­thing out of these pieces. Kix also encour­ages par­ents to “gath­er the fam­i­ly and check out the fol­low­ing how-tos and amaz­ing cre­ations to start build­ing togeth­er,” on its web­site.

The brand says par­ents will find nine Kix Adven­ture sto­ries here, includ­ing three writ­ten by Frye.

To start read­ing, users click go and choose a theme, includ­ing Jun­gle, Ocean or Wood­land adven­ture. These sto­ries, in turn, fea­ture dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters and are paired with vari­eties of Kix cere­al, like Orig­i­nal, Berry Berry, and Hon­ey.

Sto­ries are pre­sent­ed as slideshows with instruc­tions at the start about which box char­ac­ter to build and where to use said char­ac­ters through­out. The sto­ries also include tabs to share at the end.

In addi­tion, the new cere­al box­es are only avail­able at Tar­get.

While it remains to be seen whether this is enough to encour­age moms to rein­tro­duce break­fast cere­al in gen­er­al, and Kix in par­tic­u­lar, the Kix Adven­ture series is also rem­i­nis­cent of recent efforts from oth­er cere­al brands like Lucky Charms and Fruit Loops, which have made appeals to adults who grew up eat­ing the cere­al.

“I do think that cere­al brands play up the nos­tal­gia aspect of the break­fast expe­ri­ence,” said Tes­sa Wegert, com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor at dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing agency Enlight­en. “It’s a per­fect way to high­light the place that their prod­ucts have with­in a house­hold and fam­i­ly.”

In addi­tion, Wegert notes cere­al brands have long embraced books as a way to con­nect with kids and their par­ents and to show sup­port of lit­er­a­cy. For exam­ple, Chee­rios has been run­ning a lit­er­a­cy pro­gram for 12 years that includes plac­ing books inside cere­al box­es and oth­er Gen­er­al Mills brands dis­trib­ute com­ic books, she says.

“Kix Adven­tures and the new Kix pack­ag­ing encour­age read­ing while also cap­i­tal­iz­ing on online medi­a’s engag­ing fea­tures and capa­bil­i­ties,” Wegert said. “Read­ers get a mul­ti­me­dia expe­ri­ence, but it takes the cere­al box to make it tru­ly inter­ac­tive. The pro­gram is a smart way to incite pur­chas­es while also pro­vid­ing val­ue to the cus­tomer. It mod­ern­izes the quo­tid­i­an act of eat­ing cere­al for break­fast to appeal to a more dig­i­tal­ly inclined cus­tomer base.”

First intro­duced in 1937, Kix says it uses ingre­di­ents like whole grain corn to “make the cere­al that gen­er­a­tions lat­er, kids still love and moms still feel good about.” Kix is a Gen­er­al Mills brand.

What do you think about Kix’s use of online media? Is the inter­ac­tive ele­ment enough to con­vince par­ents to actu­al­ly buy the prod­uct?