Pitch Magazine (2)

I managed to get the article, mentioned here, fowarded to me. And here it is, in its entirety.

Chocolate Weetabix: A brand extension too far?


3 September 2010
By David Benady

Some of the UK’s biggest grocery brands are launching line extensions that seem to contradict the values of their parent brands. As the economic downturn hits sales and shoppers turn to own labels, brand marketers are under pressure to meet tough sales targets. But launching opportunist off-shoots risks undermining the long-term equity of their brands.

Weetabix, Britain’s top-selling breakfast cereal, contains just 4.4% sugar and is much-loved by parents concerned about shovelling sugar into their children’s mouths at breakfast time. Now the £113m brand with excellent kiddie health credentials is launching Chocolate Weetabix.

The chocolate-laced version will appear in a new TV ad campaign breaking this week through agency WCRS. The blogosphere is awash with positive commentary about the product which boasts that its sugar content - 15.9% - is less than half that of other chocolate cereals such as Coco-Pops (35% sugar). But the brand extension contains three and a half times as much sugar as its parent brand. Nutritionalists warn that once children taste the delights of chocolate at breakfast, it is hard to ever return them to a healthy cereal.

The Chocolate version risks damaging the association between Weetabix and a healthy breakfast for kids. It may well be successful in the short-term. But the values of the main brand could be undermined in the long-run. For some, the Chocolate Weetabix launch is a logical response to parents’ health concerns and carries the health credentials of Weetabix into a new arena - enabling consumers of chocolate cereals to find a much lower sugar alternative. Weetabix marketing director Sally Abbott was unavailable and no-one else at the company was prepared to comment.

Meanwhile, in the personal care category, Unilever has extended its female-orientated Dove brand into the male grooming market with the launch of Dove Men+Care. Here, a brand built through a critique of women’s consumption psychology and the “Real Beauty” campaign seems to be dropping those values as it seeks to target men. Unilever claims the launch has been a phenomenal success, with 1.5 million products sold in the UK so far this year and the brand is on course to hit 5 million in its launch year. With each unit selling at about £2.50 each, that could be some £12.5m. On this estimate, sales at retail would just cover the cost of the £12m launch marketing budget.

According to Christian Barnett, planning director at branding agency Coley Porter Bell, Dove Men+Care builds on the basic values of the brand. “Dove stands for inner beauty, real beauty in all sorts of people. Why shouldn’t that extend to men? It just feels right,” he says. However, he is less convinced about Chocolate Weetabix. “Sometimes you can see brand extensions undercutting a brand. Weetabix is a healthy, simple, fortifying breakfast. The addition of chocolate doesn’t build that equity, it detracts from it. The only way to really make it work would be to think again what the overall brand stands for. If Weetabix is about “healthy fortification” the introduction of chocolate starts to push the overall Weetabix brand to a more “fortification can be fun” place. So the extension redefines the parent brand. It is like the kids re-defining the parents.”

Other seemingly self-contradicting product extensions out this autumn include Twix Fino, where the biscuit base that has helped Mars-owned Twix become a UK powerbrand is replaced by a lighter wafer filling. This version has long been available in Europe, where wafers are commonly eaten with afternoon coffee. But in the UK, this seriously redefines the product’s identity away from a stomach-filler towards a lighter snack.

Twix will be competing with Kit Kat, whose owner Nestlé is itself the arch extender of brands into unexpected areas - it rocked the confectionery market when it relaunched Kit Kat with a Chunky version as it attempted to encroach into the territory of the Mars Bar. Nestlé marketers at the company’s York-based confectionery division have applied the brand extension approach to Milkybar, the quintessential kids’ white chocolate bar. This is being reinvented as an adult treat with a Raisin & Biscuit version. The brand is moving deep into the territory of rival brands and appears to be category vaulting, re-inventing itself as part biscuit, part short-bread. A spokesman says the company is simply broadening the appeal of the brand. “Milkybar is proof that you can take long-standing brand and advertising heritage and bring it up to date. We haven’t changed the recipe, we’ve added a product for adult tastes, we’ve held on to the Milkybar kid, the line, the song, but made them fun and relevant and interactive for an adult audience.”

The whole sweets and treats category is awash with cross-over products seeking to cash in on the brand values of competitors. Kraft-owned Cadbury has teamed up with Burton’s Foods to launch biscuit versions of Turkish Delight, Crunchie and Caramel. Sales are reported to be booming, with some £7.6m of the biscuits sold since their launch in March. One wonders how long this boom in countline branded biscuits will continue, what will be the effects on the mother brands and whether the sector is driven by people trialling the products out of interest.

Some observers are sceptical about the drive to launch sub-brands. As one says: “Brand managers and marketers are typically only in their jobs for 18 months and in that time might have about eight reporting cycles, where they need to show growing sales. It doesn’t matter what the long-term impact on the brand is of launching an extension, even if it dilutes the equity and confuses the positioning of the main brand, they have got to make a difference.”

Such marketers have been dubbed “galloping midgets,” who are more interested in personal advancement than in the health of their brands in the long-run. Then again, as Keynes said, in the long-run, we are all dead.

Striking the right balance when launching a brand extension is crucial, but all too often extensions have to be reined in after swamping the master brand with conflicting brand values. Unilever has spent the past ten years pruning back its portfolio to a handful of power brands. Now the portfolio is growing again with continual brand extensions. Meanwhile, Procter & Gamble has been reducing the number of brand extensions around its Pringles Crisps brand, phasing out Minis and Select.

The economic downturn has sent marketers scurrying to look for short-term hits from brand extensions which play on the values of the parent brand as they struggle to hit their numbers. But they should beware of destroying brand equity that has been steadily built up over decades.

Strangest brand extensions of all time

- Sex Pistols scent
- Snoop Dogg’s range of pet accessories
- Budweiser Barbecue Sauce
- Cheetos Lip Balm
- Burger King fragrance BK@Flame which “captures the essence of Whopper love in the form of a body spray.”

Pitch Magazine

I was interviewed recently for 'Pitch' an online marketing magazine (which ironically, I don't think I get a subscription to). It was about brand extensions. I don't know the whole thrust of the piece, but if I manage to get access to it, I can post it. Anyway, as there is little chance of me finding it, let alone saving it, here is my little section. I was talking about having no problem with Dove extending to a male audience, if it was done correctly, but having more issues with Weetabix, a staple British breakfast cereal, doing a chocolate version.

 - - - - - - - - - 

“Dove stands for inner and real beauty in all sorts of people. Why shouldn’t that extend to certain segments of a male target?” he (ie me) says."How Dove express that thought may need some thinking about, but the thought itself is valid and seems to build out the brand equity"


In contrast, he is far less convinced about Chocolate Weetabix. “Sometimes you can see brand extensions undercutting a brand. Weetabix is a healthy, simple, fortifying breakfast. The addition of chocolate doesn’t build that equity, it detracts from it.

The only way to really make it work would be to think again what the overall brand stands for. For example, if Weetabix was about 'healthy fortification' the introduction of chocolate starts to push the overall Weetabix brand to a more 'fortification can be fun' place. So the extension re-defines the parent brand."

"It's like the kids redefining the parents!"

John Cole - As It Seemed To Me

When we cleared my Dad's house, there were a few books that I wanted to read before passing on or tossing out. One of these was an early biography of Tony Blair, before he became Prime Minister, which I haven't posted about, and there is this one, 'As It Seemed To Me' by ex BBC political correspondent, John Cole, who was a regular fixture on TV during the eighties and early nineties. So much so that the satirical TV programme, Spitting Image, parodied him.

His memories are interesting, though quite dry. He clearly is a decent guy who doesn't want to offend and treads lightly when he is in disagreement with something, for example Thatcherite policies. There is a really interesting section in which he divides politicians of all persuasions into two groups. One for whom "events fortify their original political creeds or prejudices" and others for whom their dogmas are refined or modified by experience. He clearly prefers the latter category.

It is also interesting looking back at the huge difference between the 1970's and the Labour (and to a lesser degree Conservative) attempts to deal with double digit inflation, having to negotiate incomes policy with the unions on an ongoing basis and compare that with the issues under the Thatcher governments who applied a monetary solution to economic problems, causing immense hardship in certain areas, and didn't try to reach an accommodation with the unions but instead defeat them. The difference between the two periods is even bigger for me due to my associations with each era. Bushy sideburns, glam rock and flared trousers in the early 1970s. As I was young is it all a bit 'grainy' in my memory as well as on the re-runs of the TV quality from that time. By the time we get to the 1980s it is straight jeans, post punk, even New Romantic dress sense, big shoulder pads and a sense of sometimes absurd fun and pretension.

Trout Music

I have been listening to more classical music recently. But then again I have also been listening to more BBC 6Music also. I think it is a function of having a little office at home to sit and work in. The little office will be the subject of a separate post as for this one I'll talk about music.

In the little office I have put a radio (we have radios in every room in the house and they are usually tuned to speech radio) which is set to BBC Radio 3, 6Music or ClassicFM. I put it on low volume, turn the desk light on and start doing paperwork or work. It is quite therapeutic.

I have also been listening to music downstairs as well. I have all my father's records (and my grandmother's as well, come to that) and I am slowly working my way through them. The old vinyl ones are fun; they are SO thick compared to the vinyl records I bought as a teenager. My current favourite is The Trout Quintet by Schubert. I like the music, but I like the name even more!

I had a look online for some of it, and I found this 55 minute documentary of five classical superstars coming together in London in the 1960s to play it.

Poundworld

There is something enormously fun about being given a pound and being asked to go to Poundworld  and buy the best thing in the shop. Everything is a pound, or you can buy multiples of items for a pound (eg 3 cans of coke). There is a huge a selection of things to buy. It's like that silly game we play in media strategy - if you had a pound/dollar - how would you spend it. But it is for real.

We - Ollie, George and myself - were in the middle of buying presents and we took a detour to go in poundworld. We couldn't contain ourselves to just one pound and came away with six things - solar powered light, knee length socks, changing colour light, small gardening spade, gnome, and a pack of many many AAA batteries.

I have decided when we want a cheap family day out, that we give everyone a pound and go to Poundworld.

A Memento From The Project

When we realised that the pen we had used on the wipeboard wasn't going wipe with conventional means. Luckily we found a towel and a bottle of water.

The Future of Brands

A rather grandiose title for this post, and really the title for a book rather than a short post on the blog. But it is worth mentioning that I had an interesting conversation  - I was kinda of interviewed for a project - on this subject this week. Here are a few themes that cropped up.

1. Brands being useful. No longer can brands be the nice looking fluff on top of the product. They need to offer real utility. Apps are clearly the best example of this but I suspect that it will increasingly become more widespread. Of course there still will be really luxury brands that don't apologise for their expense and opluence (one of my favourite propositions was about having the 'luxury of unused space') and of course there will be brands that strip the costs out of everything to provide unbeatable value, but utility is where it is at, especially in tech, entertainment, delivery mechanisms, etc.

2. The notion of brand as a composite of different elements you can play with, or can take different parts from or even be given the elements of and create a new/unique version of it. This way of thinking flies in the face of a single-minded brand and is more akin to a brand jigsaw or molecule or quilt of which there are many different aspects or pieces to the brand which make the whole. It speaks to the need for brand narratives or brand stories rather than single-minded propositions. This notion also allows for anyone to create their own version of the brand - which I guess is what happens in our heads anyway, each person has a slightly different take on say, Nike - rather than just think it.

3. A re-trenchment of authenticity. There will be a greater premium placed on true heritage, niche and cottage brands that story rings true. I like Clif Bar myself and the story of dissatisfaction with the current markets on a 175 mile bike ride, spending hours in mom's kitchen to get the right product, called the bar after his dad, Clifford has a great feel about it. I just hope it is true. If it isn't I will be severely let down. Ben and Jerry's would be another great example.

Effectiveness and Creativity Are Not Mutually Exclusive

I gave a paper today about objective-setting and how to measure effectiveness (perhaps I can de-brand it and insert it into this blog, like this, though I have forgotten how to do it!). It continues to surprise me how reasonably senior people see creativity and effectiveness as mutually exclusive.

Firstly, we are in a commercial industry. We don't make art.

Secondly, creativity has HUGE value in generating business value. That is to be celebrated. The more we can show the business effect of creative thinking and creative work the better we will all be.

Thirdly, though people may not get out of bed to create value for their clients -  they may do it for the creative bit for example - demonstrating value to clients SHOULD be part of the job. And if you are in client servicing in any way, and arguably we all are, there is no real get out.

Everything Everything

Everything Everything's first album is out this month. This is a single that was released last year entitled "My Keys, Your Boyfriend" and the video above accompanied it. I think they are re-releasing it with a different video very soon. The new video is at their facebook site, here, but I don't like it is as much. This is just a little more nuttier. The song is also being renamed for this release as "MY KZ, UR BF".

The lyrics are indecipherable, so I looked them up. They are also pretty potty:

Lucifer you're landing
Cross-hairs on the kitchen sink
Barb-wire in the bathroom
I can't make new memories since

Flashbacks to the time
this shell-shocked apartment was the place
i met with your boy
it's a mortal
thing, yeah it's a mortal thing
oh! he looked at me funny and a
oh! oh! think
our secret's out and a
oh-ooh-oh i try to explain
but then munitions rain,
and we're the epicentre

It's like I'm watching the A4 paper taking over the guillotine,
It's like I'm watching the A4 paper taking over the guillotine

And I wanna know what happened to your boyfriend
Cos he was looking at me like "woah..!"
Yeah right before the kitchen was a dustbowl
And tossing me the keys and I can't forget how
everything just coming through the windows
and half the street was under my nails
it's like we sitting in the Faraday cage,
when the lights all failed

i fly through the walls
all pieces colliding and i
see raymond apart
he'a a frowning now, wagging a
finger at me
"boy!" his knees bend the other way and
"boy! boy!" are you guys together honey?
"b..b..boy!" oh but now i can't find his torso, mmhmmhmm i
guess you're seperated ooh,
Monica i just wanna know...ooh

It's like I'm watching the A4 paper taking over the guillotine,
[Monica I just wanna know..]
It's like I'm watching the A4 paper taking over the guillotine

And I wanna know what happened to your boyfriend
Cos he was looking at me like "woah..!"
Yeah right before the kitchen was a dustbowl
And tossing me the keys and I can't forget how
everything just coming through the windows
and half the street was under my nails
it's like we sitting in the Faraday cage,
when the lights all failed

Lucifer you're landing (6 cars the
driveway oh i do believe it will be business inside)
Cross-hairs on the kitchen sink
(it's a real spanner into my works i think i kicked the bucket)
Baby's on the bullseye (...do believe it will be business inside..)
I can't make new memories since, ..ries since, ..ries since.

And I wanna know what happened to your boyfriend
Cos he was looking at me like "woah..!"
Yeah
right before the kitchen was a dustbowl
And tossing me the keys and I can't
forget how
everything just coming through the windows
and half the street was under my nails
it's like we sitting in the Faraday cage,
when the lights all failed

And now everybody gotta go hungry
and everybody cover up their mouths
And I haven't seen the bodycount lately
but looking at your faces it
must have been bad
and if everybody answered their phonecalls..
but people
say the army's on fire
it's like we sitting with our parachutes on
when the when the
airport's gone


I like the song so much I found this live version. It is also good and you get to see the band play it for real.

You could even watch them simultaneously.

Joining The Dots

I made a presentation to The Futures Company this morning called 'Joining The Dots'. It was about how some of that very powerful trend and insight work - whether it be desk or primary research - often gets lost in translation to the creative agency domain. It is a particular bugbear of mine as my career has crossed this divide. It was difficult for me to make the switch from enthusisatic and brainstorming researcher who thought he was being creative to being able to make a meaningful contribution to creative strategy and output. I have seen other people frustrated by the transition. It isn't easy and there is no manual to help you do it - perhaps that is a good idea for one - and my sense is that, inspite of my manuel idea, there is no substitute for the experience of doing it. It is a shame, as the very best ideas I have been involved with have been generated by looking 'outside', for insight or research or trends or some combination thereof. The trick is in bringing them to bear in a meaningful way that creative people can do something with.

It doesn't help that so much of this potentially good stuff gets handed across disciplines in the form of powerpoint and almost inevitably, it gets lost in translation. There is no substitute for talking rather than handing power point decks over. Because the recepient needs to internalise the nuggets of insight and somehow make it there own, in order to create from it, it is no wonder that a powerpoint slide just doesn't do it.

We have also become so specialist that in our process it has become rare for one person to champion insight all the way through the process. Back in the early days of account planning, planners did lots of groups on their own ideas. They were able to understand any creative work that was going into the groups and fed back to the creators in a language they understood. With more and more creative development work being put in the hands of research specialists the passage of good, clean, inspiring information is hampered.

I have more to say on this subject, but that will be for another day. The presentation seemed to go well. Whether the group take me up on the offer to have a further working session is another matter altogether.