General Mills Takes Interactive Marketing off the Computer Screen and into Grand Central

This week, General Mills sent a virtual Jolly Green Giant to Grand Central Station in New York to try to convince children to eat more vegetables.  Children taking the “Veggie Pledge” to eat one more vegetable a day had the opportunity to interact with the virtual Jolly Green Giant on a large screen.  The children’s actions were recorded and merged real-time with the on-screen character.  As part of the marketing campaign, individual photos with the Green Giant could also be posted to the brand’s Facebook page.  I suspect that this type of augmented reality marketing is faddish.  Regardless, the kids certainly seemed to be having fun, despite the fact that they had just agreed to eat more vegetables.