Kellogg Adds Honey to Target Hispanics

June 18, 2009

- Lindsay Gordon

The Kellogg Co. is adding a little honey to Corn Flakes to cement its popularity among Hispanic consumers as well as the over-55 crowd.
 
Corn Flakes with a Touch of Honey, which has adds 100 percent natural honey to the 100-year old cereal, is hitting shelves this month.
 

The new cereal taps into the growing market for honey-sweetened products, which grew by 7.5 percent last year, according to Mintel Report "Sugar and Sweeteners 2008."

The launch will be supported by an ad campaign created by Kellogg's lead agency Leo Burnett.

The new line extension targets loyal consumers of the original Kellogg's Corn Flakes cereal, particularly the 55-plus demographic. The Hispanic population has also proven to be a strong following. "Kellogg's Corn Flakes has been a part of the Latino breakfast experience for years," said Susanne Norwitz, director of brand PR at Kellogg. "This new flavor addition simply provides another great option for those who love the wholesome goodness of Corn Flakes."

While the packaging of the new flavor evokes the familiar original Corn Flakes brand, the line "With a Touch of Honey" is printed in both English and Spanish.

Kellogg hasn't put any significant marketing dollars behind the brand since 2004 when it spent $25 million on media behind Kellogg's Corn Flakes, per The Nielsen Company.

http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/hispanic-marketing/e3i6c3a49109c5609b6a1de0f3a19d8a211

Fanta Marketing Chief: We Can Grow the Category

July 14, 2009

In 2008, when Coca-Cola's flagship soda brand fell 2.5 percent in volume and Pepsi's eponymous cola dropped 6.5 percent, Fanta's modest 1 percent drop can be spun as a win, if one subscribes to the current bromide that "flat is the new up." While those numbers, courtesy of Beverage Digest, show a stagnation, they omit the fact that Fanta wasn't really available in the U.S. prior to 2001. Since then, the brand has made inroads with U.S. Hispanics, though Santiago Blanco, vp of Sprite and flavors for Coca-Cola North America, says Fanta has a lot of mainstream appeal as well. Blanco discussed how Fanta addresses both audiences with Brandweek editor Todd Wasserman. Below are some excerpts.

Brandweek: The Fanta brand was around years and years ago and then it disappeared, but in recent years it came back. What's the back story there?
Santiago Blanco: We reintroduced Fanta into the U.S. market in 2001. We had a national relaunch of Fanta in the U.S. and up til now it's been very successful. It's been growing for seven years in a row and in this industry that's quite an accomplishment. Up to today, Fanta is not only the leader in fruit-flavor soft drinks, but it's the only fruit-flavor soft drink to make it into the top 10 brands according to Beverage Digest.

BW: It was around in the 70s though, right?
SB: It was around in the 70s and 80s, but after that it remained in regions of the country until 2001, when we brought it back to a large scale.

BW: Has the brand been targeted mostly at the Hispanic market in the U.S.?
SB: We've been focusing the market toward teenagers. Teenagers 13-16 is the core target for Fanta. You'll see that all the communication coming out of the brand is targeted to the youth, including our Fantanas (http://www.fanta.com/the-fantanas/) including our new packaging and graphics. Everything we do is meant to appeal to the youth and by the way Fanta has a good appeal also to moms, so things like the 100 percent natural flavors and the orange taste appeals to moms so they like to take it home for the whole family. But it does have an overindex with Hispanics because Fanta is one of our global brands and because of that it is big in places like Latin America and Europe, so people who come from abroad get a preconceived preference for Fanta so when they come here they continue to buy it. That is cultural.

BW: Where does Fanta fit in with Coke's portfolio?
SB: Fanta is a very playful brand, it's a brand that believes that there's always a moment in time to play, especially in these tough economic times, so they bring that personality to the portfolio. Fanta is also of course a brand that gives us entrance into the fruit flavor beverages which, the dominant one is orange and Fanta being orange-centric gives us an entrance into orange, which is a very popular flavor. Also Fanta provides some variety-we have Fanta grape and Fanta strawberry-so it complements the portfolio really well.

BW: Is market share up as a result of having more advertising. Is that something you're looking to increase?
SB: Absolutely. I think that raising the brand awareness has allowed us to keep the growth going. I think also the consistency-we have kept  the same campaign for almost seven years and I think that has contributed to people recognizing the brand immediately.

BW: The market for carbonated soft drinks is pretty stagnant and even seems to be shrinking and the thinking is that there are so many choices out there that they can't hold the position in the market that they used to. What do you think?
SB: Oh no. I believe absolutely that we can grow the category and the category's going to grow. What we're doing is things like providing different packaging options so you can buy the package that best fits your consumption occasions and doing things like pushing our marketing so we make it more exciting for consumers and we are bringing a lot of innovation to our products as well and that we know captures the attention of all our customers. 

Source: http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/hispanic-marketing/e3i67480ca25dbde86ae46889ad0de129c2

Fanta shows us how it tweaks its product-line and communications to aim the Hispanics consumers.

Unilever Expands ViveMejor Initiative

July 16, 2009

Unilever’s ViveMejor (“Live Better”) program continues to evolve. Now in its third year, the multi-brand campaign addresses the personal care and cooking needs of Hispanic women through such avenues as expert advice and valuable coupons from popular Unilever brands.

“Unilever continues to look for innovative ways to deliver on the promise of our vitality mission to help our consumers look good, feel good and get more out of life,” noted Marc Shaw, integrated marketing director at Englewood Cliffs, N.J.-based Unilever U.S. “Our 2009 ViveMejor campaign is a testament of our commitment to offer Latinas practical solutions that will help them simplify their daily routine so they can do the things that matter to them the most.”

As well as the ongoing beauty and food campaigns “Pasa La Belleza” (“Spread the Beauty”) and “Desafío del Sabor” (“The Flavor Challenge”), this year’s program features new talent and a variety of consumer touch points, including national television integrations on morning and evening shows shown on Spanish-language television network Univision, public relations outreach, print advertorials in best-selling Hispanic magazines, direct mail, and retail events in the top Hispanic cities across the United States.

Additionally, to promote the company’s food solutions, Marcela Valladolid, chef and author of “Fresh Mexico,” will now offer recipes and cooking tips to help such featuring  brands as Hellmann’s and Best Foods, Knorr, Lipton and Ragú.

Moreover, as part of Unilever’s sustainability mission, all content from the ViveMejor magazine is now available online at ViveMejor.com. The newly redesigned Web site aims to enhance consumers’ online experience through a fresh, simple-to-use layout allowing quick access to recipes, cooking demonstration videos, beauty tips and high-value coupons. Visitors can also view the calendar of events scheduled across the United States, during which they will be able to receive free in-person beauty consultations and cooking tips from beauty expert and hair stylist Leonardo Rocco and Valladolid.

http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/hispanic-marketing/e3iaa05fecf97736efdd3b52cd49a71ca28

Another example of multi-brand campaign by a house of brands with specific ethnic-group target which was maximized through multiple touchpoints.

Beer giants keep NFL ad tap flowing during downturn

Anheuser-Busch, MillerCoors up expenditures as other industries ease back

By William Spain, MarketWatch

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- As the National Football League's season kicks off in the middle of the worst advertising slowdown in years, the NFL and its broadcast partners can count on one old standby to step up and spend freely: Beer.

Even as they suffer their own volume and profit pinches as cash-strapped consumers trade down to cheaper suds -- or move to the hard stuff -- the nation's two largest brewers are pouring the cash into pro football-related advertising and promotions, hoping that longstanding ties to the sport and its fans will keep sales bubbling during the recession.
That comes as many other sponsors pare media expenditures almost across the board.

Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors plan to ramp up their efforts during the regular season and playoffs this year, possibly helping a bit to fill an expected gap left by sharp cutbacks from two traditionally big-spending industries currently in deeper trouble than most: Automotive and financial services.

And while the Big Two brewers have been doing some cost-cutting of their own, it does not appear to extend to their ad budgets, at least where the NFL is concerned.

"There is no denying the thirst for pro football among adult beer drinkers," said Dan McHugh, vice president for media, sponsorship and activation at Anheuser-Busch. "To connect with them, we plan to increase our ad spend this season with network and cable broadcast partners."

He added that the enhanced presence will be used to back the Bud Light's "Tailgate Approved" ad campaign. The company also sponsors 28 of the 32 teams in the NFL and will maintain its exclusive beer and other malt beverage category exclusivity in the Super Bowl.

Big Beer's commitment to football is extraordinary. Both Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors spent about a third of their total media budgets in and around the sport last year.

Anheuser-Busch, swallowed up last year by Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev and renamed Anheuser-Busch InBev , spent about $153 million in football-related TV programming in 2008, up from $143 million in 2007 and $111 million in 2006, according to ad-tracker TNS Media Intelligence.

MillerCoors, whose domestic operations were combined in mid 2008 by parents SABMiller and Molson Coors , spent $102 million behind their brands. That actually was down slightly from the prior year but up from $94 million in 2006.
For its part, MillerCoors is going to "deliver the biggest football season ever for Miller Lite and Coors Light," said Jackie Woodward, vice-president of media and marketing services for MillerCoors, promising a "fully integrated and fully differentiated" ad campaigns across multiple media platforms.

She said that the NFL is "America's game. It is a fantastic beer-drinking occasion and appeals to legal-age beer drinkers of all walks of life, all ages and all genders and geographies."

The upticks in spending on the NFL comes even as the companies suffer from volume declines, with Anheuser-Busch InBev down 1% in the U.S. in its latest reported quarter and MillerCoors off by about the same.
Brewers big and small have been struggling through the downturn as some drinkers switch to lower-priced, lower-margin brands. Changing consumer preferences have also stung, especially the growing taste for distilled spirits among the younger set.

Football is among the more expensive TV time available, but brewers have little choice to but to smile and suck it up.
"It is critically important for the category," said Benj Steinman, editor of Beer Marketer's Insights. "Their key demographic is 21-to-27-year-old males and football is the No. 1 sport for that. It is where the wars are won or lost."
He noted that MillerCoors has "been making hay with their exclusive sponsorship" deal with the NFL, which is not only driving its spending up but also that of its rival as "I think it sticks in Anheuser-Busch's craw a bit."
NFL games are broadcast on three on-air networks: General Electric's NBC, CBS and Fox, which is owned by News Corp. the owner of MarketWatch, publisher of this report.

Neither NBC nor Fox responded to a request for comment about ad sales trends for their NFL programming but a CBS spokeswoman said that the beer category "is healthy."

Some games are also shown on two cable outlets, Disney's ESPN and the NFL Network.

Terry Lefton, editor-at-large of Sports Business Journal, pointed out that even when companies are cutting marketing budgets, TV time -- especially in high-rating programs -- is often the last to feel the knife.

Compared in-stadium signage or consumer promotions, he said, both produce results that "are relatively intangible but media is easier to justify. Good or bad, it is accepted. No one ever gets fired for buying what their boss bought or their predecessor bought."

Apart from beer, he noted that "I have heard that early-season NFL sales are sluggish but they are still outperforming the rest of the market. They are feeling [the downturn] but any other sports property in the nation would love to have their problems."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/story/print?guid=49F30626-3B36-4AFA-8A8C-AC08418FD7DC

Why Bounty Is a Hit With U.S. Hispanics

Aug 15, 2009

- Elaine Wong

Consumers are cutting back on just about everything right now, but some items—paper towels and diapers, for instance—will always be musts. That said, recession-conscious shoppers won’t part with their money unless there’s a promise of value. It’s a dynamic that David Miller Gomez-Giron, Procter & Gamble’s associate marketing director, sees in action every day. Gomez-Giron—who oversees multicultural marketing for Bounty, Charmin and Pampers—has his sights trained on the Hispanic shopper. And for good reason. Not only is the demo huge (46.9 million), but it also responds especially well to quality/value messages. U.S. Hispanics, Gomez-Giron says, understand that “they get what they pay for,” which is why brands such as Bounty and Charmin continue to gain market share with this ethnic group. Below, Gomez-Giron discusses his ethno-targeting strategy, plus his overall plans to help P&G wipe up the competition.


Brandweek: Colleagues summarize your marketing approach as “turning the tortilla over.” Would you care to translate that for us?
David Miller Gomez-Giron: We are in a time where the importance of Hispanic consumers has turned the tables. [In Spanish, the equivalent saying is se volteo la tortilla, which translates as “turned the tortilla over.”] In 1995, when I was a summer intern at P&G, I was given the Hispanic community as one of my projects. It was not really a priority at the time. Today, in many cases, Hispanics are driving strategic priorities. Hispanics are often the design target, meaning that an initiative is designed to delight this consumer first. Category growth rates are higher for Hispanics in 21 of the 22 categories where we compete, so while it’s still possible for a brand to deliver its goals without [marketing to] Hispanics, they’re becoming a must. The Hispanic market is almost like a developing country inside the U.S.

BW: How is marketing your brands to Hispanic consumers different from reaching out to the general populace?
G-G: It all starts with knowing your consumer better than anyone else. That part is no different with Hispanics. The most important skill is to be able to determine when a simple adaptation of the general market plan will work, and when you need to do something completely different. While you can follow a more basic formula—such as always translating the general market copy or doing something unique for Hispanics—you’ll find that the former can miss the target by a lot in some cases, and the latter is resource-intensive and not always necessary. There are, however, some Hispanic nuances that are very consistent. For example, we were doing value-oriented communications before it was trendy. That’s because Hispanics are very price sensitive and value-oriented consumers. As such, we have had to be more overt to demonstrate the value that our products offer them.  Many of the ideas and insights that our teams and agencies have around value are now being leveraged by general market brands in their recent plans given the current economic conditions.

BW: Private label has been capturing serious market share of late. Does that trend worry you?
G-G: Private label remains overdeveloped with Hispanic consumers and is growing at a faster pace than in previous years. Interestingly, our fastest growing brand is Bounty, which carries a significant premium versus private label. It is also the brand where we have been running value-oriented communication for the longest time, and consumers recognize its performance advantages. On Bounty, we are growing both share on the value tier (Bounty Basic) and also on the premium tier behind Bounty Extra Soft which was designed to [appeal primarily to] Hispanics. In fact we reached an all-time dollar-share high of 44.6 percent in January 2009, and on Charmin, we are also growing share this year.

BW: Pampers and Bounty are your premium brands. How can you market them at a time when so many shoppers—including Hispanics—just want a low price?
G-G: First, we are leveraging our strong portfolio that allows us to meet consumers’ needs across price tiers. But Hispanic consumers know that “lo barato sale caro” [“cheap can be expensive” or, the English equivalent, “you get what you pay for”]. We must ensure that our consumers continue to understand the superior value that our brands deliver. For instance, in our most recent Charmin copy, we show consumers how, with Charmin, it is possible to use four times fewer sheets than with the leading competitor. 

BW: P&G has made a big push for social media across all of its brands lately, but how receptive has the Hispanic community been to Twitter, Facebook and the like?
G-G: We are more than doubling our investment on digital given the growing importance of these vehicles. [On the brands I oversee, however,] we haven’t yet done large campaigns on Twitter and Facebook. TV continues to be extremely effective for Hispanics, and in some cases it is bringing in higher ROIs than the general market.

BW: Name one key insight about Hispanic shoppers that might surprise people.
G-G: These consumers are so value oriented that they will do their own tests at home to see if a product is worth the premium. A consumer recently told us she was running a test with Charmin and a competitive brand—one in the bathroom downstairs, one upstairs—and ended up being loyal to Charmin. 

Source: http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/hispanic-marketing/e3i0b8d80b2eaaf4770ef72b9f2e2d8b73f