ICE CREAM CONES CEREAL

 

ICE CREAM CONES CEREAL

 

General Mills

 

            From the company that brought you cookies for breakfast came the next leap forward: ice cream for breakfast! Led by project director Ronald Leuthner, Ice Cream Cones cereal was introduced in 1987 by General Mills. The cereal contained two types of pieces: cones that tasted like sugar cones, and balls meant to represent scoops of ice cream flavored with either vanilla or chocolate chip. The pieces offered a bit of playability as you could stack the ball bits on top of the cones and pretend you were actually eating an ice cream cone.

            The advertising campaign was led by the cereal’s animated mascot: Ice Cream Jones. He was depicted on an old-fashioned ice cream freezer bike peddling his wares to kids around the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the cereal barely lasted a year and was gone from store shelves as quickly as it arrived. Despite its short life, there were a number of premiums for it including gumballs to go with the offer for a send-away gumball machine coin bank, send away offers for a digital watch with the cereal’s logo, a mini-piano and a mug shaped like a soft-serve ice cream cone, playing cards and coupons for a Blizzard from Dairy Queen.

The back and informational side panel of the rebooted cereal.

            In 2003, to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the ice cream cone, General Mills briefly revived the chocolate chip version of the cereal. The box came adorned with ice cream facts and a series of games set at a water park on the back, as well as coupons for Nestlé ice cream products. Aside from the lack of Ice Cream Jones, the biggest change was the fact that the cones were no longer 3-dimensional; instead, they were just flat triangular pieces.