You may have seen a strange Korean ad that went viral about a week ago promoting Green Onion Chex cereal. The limited edition cereal is the culmination of a story that began 16 years ago. It started when Kellogg's had a great idea for a marketing stunt to promote Chocolate Chex in Korea.
In 2004, Nongshim Kellogg launched an online “election” for the president of Chex featuring two candidates, chocolate-colored character Chekkie and green-colored character Chaka. Chekkie promised to make the cereal more chocolatey while Chaka promised to put green onion in the cereal. When internet communities heard about this election, they started voting for Chaka, to Kellogg Korea’s horror.
With Chaka bound for victory, Kellogg deleted over 42,000 votes, citing “security reasons.” With Chaka still winning by a few thousand votes, Kellogg added offline votes and ARS call votes, in a blatant manipulation of the result, to make Chekkie the winner.
See, they couldn't accept Chaka as the winner, because there was no such product, but the vote manipulation left a bad taste in the public's mouth. Inexplicably, Kellogg's repeated the disaster in Japan in 2012, pitting Chocolate Chex against a wasabi flavored rival. But 16 years later, Green Onion Chex is a reality. They should remove the sugar and release it in the US, where savory Chex Mix is as popular as the cold cereal version. Read more about the promotion that went wrong at the Korea Herald. -via Metafilter