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Home / Industry News / Brad Hiranaga, Chief Brand Officer, North America at General Mills

Brad Hiranaga, Chief Brand Officer, North America at General Mills

December 14, 2020 By John E Lincoln

Brad Hiranaga General Mills

In this edition of Marketer of the Week, Ignite Visibility spotlights Brad Hiranaga, Chief Brand Officer, North America at General Mills.

Ignite Visibility applauds Hiranaga and the General Mills team for the recent launch of “Sesame Street” cereal.

General Mills says that the cereal will be available in January with two flavors: cinnamon and berry.

True to the theme of Sesame Street, the cereals aim to give kids a little bit of an education. The cinnamon-flavored cereal includes letter-shaped pieces while the berry-flavored cereal includes number-shaped pieces.

Also, kids will find a book on the back of each cereal box. The book will tell a short story with Elmo as the main character.

Additionally, the General Mills stock made a strong comeback since the market crash during the earlier part of this year, rising to about $120 today from a low of $86.29 in March.

And analysts expect the company to beat earnings when it releases quarterly earnings later this week.

Those kinds of results are possible with people like Brad Hiranaga managing the marketing organization for the company’s $10 billion North America segment.

Brad Hiranaga’s Long History

These days, you see a lot of “job hoppers.” But Hiranaga definitely doesn’t fit into that category.

He’s been with General Mills for more than 16 years.

Hiranaga started off as an Associate Brand Manager back in 2004. He held that position for about four years.

Then, he got promoted to Senior Marketing Manager. He served in that role for five years.

Afterwards, he moved up to Director of Marketing for the Totino’s brand.

Totino's

Totino’s Pizza Rolls

You might have enjoyed Totino’s yourself if you were a college student at any time within the past couple of decades. They’re pizza products that make great late-night snacks.

But it wasn’t college students that Hiranaga targeted when he promoted the brand. It was teens and moms.

And he succeeded. Hiranaga grew the $650 million brand “through engaging and entertaining brand building, break-through innovation and undeniable value.”

But his career with General Mills didn’t stop with pizza. He added tacos to the mix as well.

In 2014, Brad Hiranaga landed the position of Business Unit & Marketing Director: Pizza & Tacos.

Apparently, that’s a thing at General Mills.

In that role, he continued to manage marketing for Totino’s but also added the Old El Paso brand to his responsibilities.

Yes, those are the taco kits you often see in the ethnic section of your local grocery store.

According to Hiranaga, he drove top- and bottom-line growth for both brands.

How did he do it? “Through purpose-led brand building, remarkable product innovation and continuous marketing experimentation.”

That brings us to his role today, a position he’s held since January 2017.

Now, Brad practices what he calls “positive agitation” to build brands. I think that’s his way of saying he’s a polite disruptor.

With the work that he does now, Hiranaga promotes several household-name brands including Nature Valley, Cheerios, Wheaties, and Yoplait.

General Mills Products

General Mills: Example of Products

Additionally, he manages “Brand Strategy, Comms Orchestration, Creative, Content, Design, Production, Media, MarCom, Social, Experiential, Partnerships, Promotions, Events, Licensing, Marketing Excellence, Shopper Marketing and eCommerce for all GMI brands.”

That probably keeps him busy.

Wrapping It Up

There’s no doubt that General Mills is a fixture in the history of American enterprise. Virtually everybody in this country has enjoyed the company’s products on multiple occasions.

And yet, like all companies, it needs to keep promoting its products or they’ll end up on the wrong end of the marketing cycle.

That’s why it’s a good thing that Brad Hiranaga, Chief Brand Officer at General Mills is managing that effort in North America. I look forward to seeing where he leads the company in the future.

And who knows? With his track record, Hiranaga might end up as CEO one day.

About John E Lincoln

John Lincoln (MBA) is CEO of Ignite Visibility (a 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 Inc. 5000 company) a highly sought-after digital marketing strategist, industry speaker and author of two books, "The Forecaster Method" and "Digital Influencer." Over the course of his career, Lincoln has worked with over 1,000 online businesses ranging from small startups to amazing clients such as Office Depot, Tony Robbins, Morgan Stanley, Fox, USA Today, COX and The Knot World Wide. John Lincoln is the editor of the Ignite Visibility blog. While he is a contributor, he does not write all of the articles and in many cases he is supported to ensure timely content.

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About The Editor

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John Lincoln is CEO of Ignite Visibility, one of the top digital marketing agencies in the nation and a 6x Inc. 5,000 company. Lincoln is consistently named one of the top marketing experts in the industry. He has been recipient of the Search Engine Land "Search Marketer of the Year" award, named the #1 SEO consultant in the USA by Clutch.co, most admired CEO and 40 under 40. Lincoln has written two books (The Forecaster Method and Digital Influencer) and made two movies (SEO: The Movie and Social Media Marketing: The Movie) on digital marketing. He is a digital marketing strategy adviser to some of the biggest names in business. John Lincoln is the editor of the Ignite Visibility blog. While he is a major contributor, he does not write all of the articles.

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