Honey Nut Cheerios seeds of hope (or despair?)

It's finally spring, and with that General Mills is celebrating the arrival of the equinox with a marketing campaign mixed in with a dose of social responsibility. A couple of weeks ago the company launched #BringBacktheBees, a program designed to highlight the unexplained decline of bees in the world. To do so they utilized the best-selling cereal in North America, Honey Nut Cheerios, as the platform to get this message across. Specially marked boxes in the U.S. and Canada feature Buzz the Bee missing, with only a silhouette in its place. As part of the promotion consumers were invited to request a package of wildflower seeds so that they could contribute to nourishing the bees around them.

Apparently the seed giveaway has been a resounding success, even exceeding General Mills' goal. 1.5 billion seeds were distributed, and their website says they have none left. This is a feel good campaign that not only raises the profile of the cereal, but creates of lots of goodwill for the company as well.

Except, however, for some controversy. Apparently some environmentalists, as reported on Lifehacker, have urged people not to plant these seeds since many of them are flowers not native to the United States, and therefore not necessarily a good match for the bees. The fear is that this could actually cause more damage than good. General Mills countered these concerns on the Cheerios Facebook page claiming that "the seed varieties in the mix are not considered invasive."

Most of this "buzz" has been good, but it seems that cereal companies just cannot get it completely right nowadays!