Taking a quick trip to a local Wallmart yesterday I happened across a new product. I initially passed it by, then had to circle back to confirm what I had just been a witness to. And there it was... Chocolate Cheerios. As a child I am sure that everyone who has eaten Cheerios has dreamed about this. I think this is the childhood equivalent of finding the Loch Ness monster, the fountain of youth, etc. Could this be real? It was real and the display sat boldly in the center of the isle, almost mocking my childhood.

Call me crazy, but I can't see how launching a chocolate version of this cereal can really work, no matter how tasty it really is. It sounds great on paper, and probably had some great discussion in the General Mills product development teams over the years. However, every marketer has a potential product like this that while interesting, just can't work due to the realities of the world. I thought that the company had crossed the line a few years ago when it launched Frosted Cheerios, but this product has survived and its numbers must have supported this product introduction. To me, General Mills has "jumped the shark" on the core brand attributes that Cheerios has been built upon: healthy and heart friendly.

I don't care how you slice it, as a marketer, chocolate cannot be equated with healthy without taking some bruises. Knowing we're fighting an uphill battle, I thought that I would throw out some other messaging points that General Mills could use to cement this line extension in with the other "healthy" editions of Cheerios:

• "Now made with dark chocolate, the healthy version of chocolate."
• "Just as healthy as chocolate cake, chocolate milk and chocolate bars."
•  "Whole grains, covered in gooey chocolate. Yum!"