Jump!

Carmela Leon watched the women jumping and shook her head.

“Not me, not today,” she laughed. “And not in these shoes.”

Her footwear may have kept her from leaping for the camera, but a new live event and contest from General Mills is geared toward making sure her fitness level doesn’t stand in the way. Leon was watching a live promotion for the “Real Change, Real Women” contest, which the consumer foods company’s Big G cereal division is rolling out in partnership with Curves International, the chain of women-only fitness centers.

The live event kicked off in Chicago in September and moved to three other cities last month. It was aimed at drawing attention both to the contest and to an online community where women can share their inspirational weight-management stories and support each other’s fitness goals.

And the jumping? That’s all part of competing for the prize — the chance to appear as one of the airborne models on future boxes of General Mills’ new Curves cereal, on grocery shelves since July.

The women Leon was watching were posed in front of a huge mock-up of a Curves cereal box set up in a park just off Michigan Avenue. One by one, or sometimes in pairs, they walked onto the set and on the photographer’s cue, launched themselves a few inches into the air, laughing and kicking their heels up — the signature look for the Curves cereal box.

Women can enter the “Real Change, Real Women” contest either at one such live event or online at the www.CurvesFoods.com Web site. Either way, they’re asked to submit their inspirational story about weight management and how it has changed their life by Nov. 7. Those signing up via the Web site also have the option of uploading their own “jump” photo or video.

A panel of judges from General Mills and Curves will choose 25 finalists based on their inspirational quotient and the emotional connection they create. The top dozen will be put up on the Web site by Dec. 1 and the public will vote for their favorites. Winners will be named by Jan. 30, 2008.

The grand-prize winner will earn not just the chance for cereal-box immortality, but a $5,000 award, a year’s supply of Curves Cereal and Curves granola bars and a 12-month membership to a local Curves fitness club. Four other finalists will take away $1,000 and six-month Curves gym memberships.

The “Real Change, Real Women” campaign taps into a couple of current trends in marketing consumer goods to the female market. There’s the same emphasis on using real people rather than idealized models that has made the Dove “Real Beauty” campaigns a success.

Specifically, General Mills is upping the ante on fitness and weight-management campaigns from other cereal brands such as Kellogg’s Special K, which for almost two years has been promoting the “Special K Challenge,” a two-week diet that promises a five-pound average weight loss.

“‘Real Change, Real Women’ is about more than a short-term challenge,” says Kymm Pollack, marketing director of General Mills’ Big G cereal division. “General Mills is always on the lookout to make life richer, easier or healthier for our consumers, and we found that what was missing was a holistic approach to weight management. There are all these crash diets that claim you’ll lose this amount of weight for two weeks, but then you know you’ll gain that weight back.”

General Mills announced the exclusive Curves licensing deal in May and brought out the branded line of products in June: two breakfast cereals, Curves Whole Grain Crunch and Curves Honey Crunch, and two Curves granola bars, in chocolate peanut and strawberries and cream flavors. The cereals have 190 calories or less per serving; the granola snacks have 100 calories and 5 grams of fiber per bar. The granola bars are also sold in the 8,000 Curves franchises around the U.S.

“This promotion is more about a long-term sustainable approach to weight management that lets users take the weight off and keep it off,” Pollack says. “And when we looked to partner, we found the Curves organization. Their whole mission is about strengthening women, and it just seemed like a perfect fit.”

At the live event in Chicago, attendees heard brief talks every half hour between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. from contest spokeswoman and Daytime Emmy Award winner Judi Evans, who spoke of her difficulties shedding weight after her baby’s birth in order to return to her role on “Days of Our Lives.” The audience also got dietary tips from dietician Rebecca Lindberg and fitness advice from locally based Curves trainer Sandie Maddux.

The event format was due to be replicated in at least three other cities during October, Pollack said: Baltimore, Minneapolis and Portland, OR. In each city, General Mills included samples of one of the Curves cereals and coupons in Sunday-newspaper polybag inserts, with the URL for the contest site included on the packaging.

That site carries through the theme of creating a support community where women can share their weight-management stories. A “Moment of Truth” page on the site lets users register and then offer stories about a moment when they realized they had to change their lives. Participants’ moments are teased in a tag cloud that allows new visitors to mouse over and sample their stories in pop-up form before signing up to add their own (and, incidentally, getting the chance to opt in to e-mail from the Curves Foods Community).

Users can also download a widget that will embed the “Moment of Truth” feature, including clickable photos and the stories behind them, to a Web page, blog or iGoogle personalized home page.

Other features on the CurvesFoods.com site include a “Tools for Success” page that offers original content from bloggers and experts on diet, exercise and attitudinal change, and a community forum section where members can discuss topics raised in the blogs and other content. The entries are all bookmarkable on the Digg, del.icio.us and reddit online bookmarking systems and can be forwarded to friends. The most active contributors are listed. At press time, the site listed 1,143 registered members, 2,571 posts to its groups and 805 “Moment of Truth” postings.

Back in Chicago, Carmela Leon watched a few photogenic jumps, then took herself off to a lunch meeting — but not before accepting a sample Curves Foods Strawberries + Cream granola bar.

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