I love hearing about what Minnesota companies do with technology. Today’s fun use of technology comes from General Mills in Golden Valley. They are starting to incorporate technology into the cereal boxes. The idea is that using their smartphones, cereal eaters will soon be able to access digital visual surprises. QR Codes are the technology they are looking at using.

In an interview with USA Today, General Mills Chief Marketing Officer Mark Addicks points out that the cereal box is one of most read items today. On the average three people per household read the box up to twelve times. Now they can be providing more content – to those folks who have smartphones. They are also looking at apps.

Apparently we can expect to start seeing these tech treats later this year. Addicks didn’t want to get in too much details, in case competitors might be reading, but he did offer this…

“You point to a logo and things start to appear,” he says. “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.”

It’s fun but I think it also speaks to the growing ubiquity of smartphones. Brands generally do not shoot for attracting the bleeding edge of customers – they want the critical mass.