Onwards Launches Playful Brand For Surreal Cereal

Cereal is a constant grocery store battle. Do you buy the sugary box to make the people of the house happy, or do you buy the bland box to make everyone's health happy? There was no win-win until agency Onwards released their cereal dubbed "Surreal." Not only is the nutritional value up to everyone's healthiest standards, but the packaging design showcases that it still tastes like the unhealthy cereal everyone truly wants. Bright colors, bold fonts, and cheeky illustrations make up the front of the box, and all we know is that we need to get our hands on that cocoa cereal, stat!

Startup-focussed branding agency Onwards have named, designed and launched Surreal - a new brand of healthy cereal aiming to make the kind of cereal we loved as kids nutritionally relevant for today. 

Spotting a huge opportunity in the cereal aisle that’s barely evolved for decades, Surreal’s co-founders Kit Gammel and Jac Chetland (both ex-Vita Coco) are on a mission to make the cereals we all loved as kids nutritionally relevant for the adults we’ve become. 

Using modern ingredients, and a grown up approach to nutrition they’ve created Surreal - a new breed of cereal that’s high in plant based protein, low carb, zero sugar, vegan, gluten free, keto-friendly and most importantly, tastes like the indulgent cereal we all still secretly love. 

This improbable achievement became the inspiration for the brand name Surreal and the irreverent brand world Onwards created. Starting with the name itself, every aspect of the Surreal brand is designed to spark new ways of looking at the ordinary.  

From packaging to web experience and tone of voice, Surreal invites you to play with what’s possible, at breakfast time and beyond.

Onwards Founder Joe Ryrie said: “Reimagining what cereal brand could mean today was a huge amount of fun. It’s an emotionally charged category and everyone remembers their favourite childhood cereal, but for Surreal to stand out it needed to look forward, not back. We wanted the brand to stand for questioning what’s possible, and invite customers to think a little more playfully - at breakfast and beyond.”

Surreal co-founder Kit Gammell said: “By challenging the ingredients that make up traditional cereals, we’ve created Surreal. Cereal that is healthy & functional, using modern ingredients. We’ve stuck to the flavours we loved growing up, but have made them nutritionally relevant for lifestyle’s of today.”

Surreal Investor and Founder of Proper, Ryan Kohn said: “Choosing healthy alternatives shouldn’t mean compromising on taste. Surreal have created a fantastic product and brand that looks set to disrupt the cereal category".