The average consumer checks out his or her cereal box 12 times, according to Mark Addicks, chief marketing officer for food giant General Mills, making it a very widely read medium. Not surprisingly General Mills sees opportunity in those numbers and is taking advantage of an array of ad technology to target consumers via this ubiquitous consumer good, according to USA Today.

General Mills expects to roll out concepts using the cereal box this summer, according to the publication. Addicks wouldn’t discuss the details, but did cite several of the technologies being considered. These include QR codes as well as apps.

"Maybe some functional content will pop up on a cake-mix box, or you might see entertainment and games coming from a cereal box. What I'm hoping for is pure entertainment."

Clearly consumers of food products such as cereal are highly targeted by a slew of campaigns and advertising products.

Ready-to-eat cereal is a very popular US digital coupon category for both traditional and mobile download, according to Coupons.com. The Digital Coupon Trends Report for 2010 indicates that traditional and mobile download actually shared the same top five categories of ready-to-eat cereal, yogurt, refrigerated dough, portable snacks, and vegetables.

Interactive Packaging

Interactive packaging, though, is one area in which campaigns can be considered relatively rare. Examples do exist, however.  Lego has used augmented reality technology on the side of its packaging to give shoppers an idea of what the kit inside can produce. The boxes, created by augmented reality expert Metaio, interface with kiosks in Lego stores. Users would hold them up to the camera and see an image of the completed kit seemingly pop out from the package.

Nestle has used AR technology on the side of a children's cereal box. When children held the box up to a webcam a game was displayed, played by characters from the children's movie that the campaign was promoting at the time - Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard.