Jennie-O Turkey Store – Look At Turkey Now

Category: Packaged Food

Client: Jennie-O Turkey Store

Primary Agency: BBDO Minneapolis

Media Agency: PHD

STRATEGIC CHALLENGE

Persuade people to alter their ritual in preparing a traditional Thanksgiving meal

Most people don't find turkey very compelling. Jennie-O does, and their innovative product portfolio has introduced new ways to prepare and enjoy turkey. One example is Jennie-O's Oven Ready fresh-frozen turkey. Oven Ready allows you to make a perfect whole turkey without thawing, cleaning or prepping. It comes sealed in a fool-proof cooking bag which goes straight from the freezer to the oven.

Thanksgiving, “the Super Bowl of Turkey,” is owned by BUTTERBALL. The BUTTERBALL brand enjoys near-universal awareness of 96% (Source: GFK Research 2006 brand awareness tracking study) and U.S. sales of $600 million (Source: 2006 Smithfield Foods Investor Information). The purchase and preparation of the iconic BUTTERBALL traditional turkey has been a Thanksgiving ritual for over 50 years.

Jennie-O's desire to introduce Oven Ready's game-changing proposal around the “star” of the Thanksgiving meal posed a considerable strategic challenge.

OBJECTIVES

Since Oven Ready's 2004 introduction, Jennie-O had seen modest growth in awareness and product interest. The feeling at Headquarters was that Oven Ready was not living up to its market potential. Thanksgiving '06 was earmarked as a “make or break” season, however the Oven Ready media plan budget had to remain under $3.5MM consistent with previous years-$3.3MM in '05 and $3.1MM in '04 (Source: Jennie-O Historical OR Market Plan Overview).

A. Quantifiable business goal:	Achieve double digit growth in Oven Ready shipped units over 2005 benchmark (Source: Jennie-O 2006 OR Market Plan).
B. Behavioral goal:	Increase Oven Ready product awareness via “branded experiences” to stimulate word of mouth product buzz in both consumer and trade (Source: Jennie-O 2006 OR Market Plan).
C. Perceptual/Attitudinal goal:	Increase Unaided Product/Brand Connection over 2005 benchmark of 43% (Source: Hall & Partners Research Pre-Post OR Tracking study).

THE BIG IDEA

“Our idea was to rekindle memories of the mess that comes with preparing a traditional turkey while communicating Oven Ready's hassle-free, perfect turkey promise.”

Jennie-O's previous campaigns focused on Oven Ready's “fool proof” convenience. 2006 qualitative and quantitative consumer research (Source: Hall & Partners Research Pre-Post OR tracking study) indicated Oven Ready's greatest appeal was more specific than the broad “fool proof” message. What really intrigued people was Oven Ready's promise of a great tasting turkey without the “ick-factor” that comes from handling, thawing and cleaning a traditional Thanksgiving turkey.

We also began to understand the limits of our product offering. We're not for everyone. Oven Ready isn't the turkey for “first-timers” or “center-piece artisans” striving to impress on the big day, but rather for all those who can relate to the pain-in-the-neck mess that comes with thawing, cleaning and prepping a traditional bird.

As we propped deeper into the experiences of Thanksgiving veterans, we discovered the familiar, traditional holiday imagery paled to their vivid, often hilarious, personal turkey preparation “horror stories” (Source: agency qualitative OR research groups 2006).

If we could somehow harness the power of these rich, albeit negative, experiences to the promise of Oven Ready, we believed we could begin to achieve Oven Ready's market potential.

BRINGING THE IDEA TO LIFE

Our communication strategy was to rekindle memories of the messy hassles surrounding the traditional Thanksgiving turkey while portraying Oven Ready's perfect turkey promise.

We identified an attitudinally-defined target, “Promise Seekers,” who are Thanksgiving – experienced meal-preparer, willing to pay more and break tradition for Oven Ready's promise of a great tasting turkey without the mess (Source: Hall & Partners A&U 2006 Study).

To maximize the effectiveness of our $3.3MM media budget, we concentrated the vast majority of our plan within the two-weeks prior to Thanksgiving 2006. Our media strategy was to reach “Promise Seekers” via multiple touch points as close as possible to their purchase decision. A mix of focused national and local market support delivered the plan.

The integrated 2006 “Look at Turkey Now” campaign utilized product placement, interactive, retail experience, word of mouth, trade direct, trade sales promotion and advertising (TV, online, print). Following are brief descriptions of our content within the channels we utilized:

Advertising: Our print, television and online ads communicated Oven Ready's no-mess benefit via an “aprons-away” visual device symbolizing our no apron-required experience.

Interactive: There is a surge of online communication around Thanksgiving as families set plans for the Holiday. To get Oven Ready into conversation, we took advantage of people's tendency to pass along silly Thanksgiving related humor and created two viral videos based on real-life traditional turkey “nightmare stories.” These were posted on YouTube and Jennie O's website. Additionally, we created and placed a branded “Turkey Baster Toss” online game to communicate our no-basting benefit.

PR: While not part of a formal PR plan, we passed along our viral videos to some national TV networks hoping they'd take notice and give us a little bonus coverage.

Product Placement: Some skepticism existed to Oven Ready's “perfect turkey” promise because of its untraditional “turkey in a bag” packaging. A partnership with NBC's “The Biggest Loser” series provided an on-air demonstration of Oven Ready's convenience and out-of-the-oven appeal in a national “reality TV” format.

Retail Experience: Boosted by our trade sell-in program – “Ask me why I'm perfect,” we were able to surround our Oven Ready grocery store displays with floor graphics and other in-store tactics which conveyed the easy steps to a perfect turkey.

Word of Mouth: We enlisted a word of mouth specialist agency partner, to sign on 3,200 targeted women in 5 DMA's to sample the product and generate discussions about Oven Ready's ease of preparation and overall taste.

Direct: Our trade sell-in program included a direct mailer targeting grocery stores' meat managers to support Jennie O's broker representatives prior to in-person sales meetings.

Communications Touch Points

Additional Marketing Components: A supplemental PR program created outside of our “Look at Turkey Now” campaign featured the daughter of Jennie O's founder (the Jennie namesake) talking about the benefits of Oven Ready. The effort resulted in 879 local print and radio placements (Source: Jennie-O 2007 OR Market Review).

Reach: National

Total Media Expenditure: $2–5 million

RESULTS

A. Quantifiable business goal:	Achieve double digit growth in Oven Ready shipped units over 2005 benchmark (Source: Jennie-O 2006 OR Market Plan).
Results:	Units shipped in 2006 increased 92% (Source: Jennie-O 2007 OR Marketing Review).
B. Behavioral goal:	Increase Oven Ready product awareness via “branded experiences” to stimulate word of mouth product buzz in both consumer and trade (Source: Jennie-O 2006 OR Market Plan).
Results:	Achieved 200,069 tracked conversations via word of mouth program – 32% over estimate (Source: agency post program tracking report 2007) Viral videos were picked up and featured on ABC's Good Morning America and CNN's American Morning, Showbiz Tonight, Situation Room and Prime News (cumulative audience of 5.9 MM viewers) (Source: agency media tracking tracking report 2007)
C. Perceptual/Attitudinal goal:	Increase Unaided Product/Brand Connection over 2005 benchmark of 43% (Source: Hall & Partners Research Pre-Post OR Tracking study).
Results:	Achieved 70% Unaided Product/Brand Connection (Source: Hall & Partners Research Pre-Port OR tracking study 2007)

Anything Else Going on that might have Helped Drive Results?

2006 was Oven Ready's third year in the marketplace. While our success was significantly greater in 2006 than in previous years, we do believe we benefited from some 2005 carry-over marketplace and awareness momentum. One nice awareness push came from an on-air, unpaid endorsement by Ellen DeGeneres on her talk-show in which she raved about the product prior to Thanksgiving 2005.

Bond & Bond – Cut to the chase

Category: Retail/Etail

Agency: DraftFCB

Advertiser: Bond & Bond

Campaign: Cut to the Chase

SUMMARY

Bond & Bond sales had been declining at an average of 2.4% pa for two years. Yet the appliance retail category had been growing at 7.2%.

DraftFCB set out to reverse Bond & Bond's fortunes using advertising only. There would be no increase in advertising spend and no change to product and pricing strategy.

The agency created a straight-talking campaign that told informed shoppers in the target audience “you want it, we've got it, let's talk'.

This campaign won DraftFCB a Gold EFFIE for retail/etail.

MARKETING CHALLENGE

Bond & Bond was in a difficult situation with sales declining, relentless advertising from competitors and New Zealand facing a recession.

All brand health measures were falling, including top-of-mind awareness, store visits and sales conversion.

Any new strategy for Bond & Bond could not be to the detriment of larger sister brand, Noel Leeming. The challenge was to establish a strong new position as part of a brand portfolio strategy.

Pricing and the in-store experience would not be changed so the advertising had to work hard.

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES

Rather than traditional soft measures such as brand health this campaign had to halt the decline in sales of 2.4% pa and return Bond & Bond to growth within six months.

TARGET AUDIENCE

The campaign break-through came with identifying a new target: Bond & Bond would target 'Mission Accomplished Shoppers'.

Mission Accomplished Shoppers are more likely to be young males or young couples. They like to research the options before entering a store and talking to a salesperson.

When they go in they want to be informed and confident. They'll know exactly what they want, or at least have narrowed it down.

They often don't accept the displayed price. They treat the in-store environment like a sporting arena. Their aim is to get the best deal possible, and the sales person is their opponent.

CREATIVE STRATEGY

The Bond & Bond brand would be all about 'cutting to the chase'. The facts were delivered in a straight-talking style – the features, the price, the deal – without the over-hyped sales pitch.

This approach was summed up by a new brand-line; 'You want it, We've got it, Let's Talk.' To get noticed a humorous and non-PC approach was used to connect with the target audience.

OTHER COMMUNICATION PROGRAMMES

• None

MEDIA STRATEGY

• TV for attitude and urgency Print to promote 'killer deals' Mailers for features and benefits

MEDIA

• Television, Newspaper, Catalogue, Point of Purchase, Online

TOTAL MEDIA EXPENDITURE

• Over $3 million

RESULTS

Target: Halt the decline in sales of 2.4% pa and return Bond & Bond to growth within 6 months.

The impact of the new campaign on sales was immediate and sustained.

This was made even more exceptional given that the category began to run out of steam due to the economic downturn. (-0.6% final quarter '07, year on year)

With the category in decline, and Bond & Bond sales in growth, the trend had truly been reversed.

Bond & Bond Sales Performance vs Category

And despite improvements to Brand Health not being an objective:

Declining brand health measures were being reversed within three months of taking the new communications strategy to market.

Analysis supplied by Colmar Brunton stated:

The brand communication awareness trend had been reversed with most of the positive shift being driven by TV and mailers. Of those who recalled B+B advertising 29% felt more positive towards the brand and 36% claimed they would be more likely to shop there.

And the new creative was engaging the new target market in particular.

On average 60% of respondents recognised seeing the new campaign. This was greater amongst our young life-stage target audience groups i.e. 67% and 73% recognition amongst 18–44 and 18–34 year olds respectively.

Ariel::: Think about wasting water

BRAND OWNER :Procter & Gamble
CATEGORY :Household Goods
REGION :Germany
DATE :Jul 2008 - Sep 2008


Ariel is one of the two big players in the German detergents market, with competitor Persil benefiting from a strong heritage of over 100 years. Ariel needed to position its product and communication strategy to appeal to people's support of sustainalble consumption, which is still strong even in times of economic strain.
Ariel's target is environmentally conscious, but only when it is at little extra effort and saves money.

Ariel's new detergent technology allows the consumer to forego the pre-wash, saving water and money. The challenge was to educate the target to the scarcity of water as a natural resource and to the financial cost of over consumption.

Ariel started with a pre-launch phase before the official start of advertising. To sharpen the targets awareness Ariel used 10 TV Specials: "Surprising water facts" spots from daily life.

Questions like 'did you know that you consumed 160 litres of water yesterday?' - were placed within Sat. 1 breakfast TV, catching the target as she starts her daily routine.

Once awareness had been sharpened, the target was invited to share their own water saving tips. Prizes worth 20,000 Euros were used as incentive, and the education was continued on Sat. 1's online portal. Underscoring this campaign was the fact that using Ariel allows you to give up your pre-wash, and do your bit for the environment.
In September 2008 Ariel took over market leadership in volume (+3.4ppts ahead) from long-time German market leader Persil for the first time.

Shredded Wheat :::Putting the "NO" in Innovation

In a time when many food products are being enhanced with super ingredients and altered to match the latest diet trends, one food brand is bucking marketing trends and embracing its lack of innovation.
After more than 100 years, Post Original Shredded Wheat cereal continues to be made with one simple, honest ingredient 100% natural whole grain wheat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULzt2rZjT4Q

Four Best-Practices for Renovating Your Brand—Before It's Too Late

Published on March 24, 2009

Stories of marketing heroes who transform poorly performing brands never fail to enthrall us: the transformation of Dove into an empowering brand; the shift to healthier eating for McDonald's; the rebound of Hewlett Packard in the PC market.

Those are among some recent successes. But they elicit the question: Why do brand leaders wait until their brands are at the breaking point, and at risk of joining such brands as Radio Shack, 7Up, or the GAP... for which renovation may be too late?

Unheralded marketing heroes renovate their brands while they are strong and growing. They spot changing market dynamics and address them as opportunities before they have time to develop into threats. Their reward is faster profitable growth without the negative headlines.
Here are four best-practices in brand renovation identified in our work with businesses across a range of markets.

1. Develop a holistic understanding of the brand
A holistic, customer-driven understanding of the current brand and a vision of the brand's future are crucial to proactive renovators. Typically, a holistic view includes an understanding of the brand's heritage, personality, iconography, functional benefits, emotional benefits, and perceived value in the minds of customers, influencers, and intermediaries.

The key is to understand how each of these groups views the brand in the context of their daily lives and compared with the other things that are on their minds. This view enables proactive renovators to see opportunities to credibly extend the brand and avoid the trap of defining the brand by what the company knows how to make or offer, instead of what customers want to buy.

Crayola has managed to stay relevant despite the digital and graphics technologies that might have threatened its brand's very essence. Its understanding of the brand goes beyond the functional benefits of washable markers or erasable pencils. Crayola's brand leaders understood that colorful fun and creativity best defined its role in the lives of teachers, parents, and children; accordingly, it evolved from an art-products company to a visual-expression company. It moved from being a partner with retailers to a partner with educators, parents, and children.

Crayola recognized the danger of being perceived as traditional and has continuously updated the look and the feel of the brand in a way that stays true to its roots but is fun and creative.
Finally, its leaders have used their understanding to guide them in developing programs for the Internet, a children's magazine, interactive toys, and advanced color technologies, breaking the constraints of selling only what can be made in a crayon and marker factory.
2. Look for segment swings
By the time most brand managers spot important trends, they are already threats. That's not surprising, since it's difficult to identify the early impact of trends among the general population of brand users.

Proactive renovators spot trends early by tracking segments of the population where the impact of change is more apparent, segmenting customers in different ways to fit their businesses.
Among the common segmentation principles:

• First, they ask questions about lifestyles and general attitudes in order to gain a broader context for the role of their products and categories.
  
• Second, they are particularly sensitive to trends with the potential to cross segments—from urban to suburban shoppers, or from youth into mainstream culture, for example.
  
• Third, they proactively test alternative ways to connect their brands to important trends in order to identify opportunities to play a greater role in the lives of their customers

Kohler is one company that is famously attuned to emerging changes in segments of the population, turning them into big business opportunities. In the process, it has been transformed into the US leader in bath and kitchen design solutions.

More than 30 years ago, Kohler spotted an emerging willingness of urban customers to spend more for high-end home designs. Herb Kohler began to advertise the Bold Look of Kohler with a differentiating focus on design that rode the wave of home investment and kitchen renovations throughout the '80s and '90s. In the early '90s, it spotted another emerging trend: the bathroom as a refuge and oasis in large suburban households. It took advantage with a line of whirlpools, Jacuzzis, and tubs, extending its reach into showers and bathroom accessories.

Most recently, Kohler has increased its emphasis on green technologies with toilets, showers, and control systems aimed at a broad audience.
3. Distinguish the underlying issues
Not every brand issue is a competitive one, but we frequently encounter brand leaders so focused on gaining advantage against a narrow set of competitors that they fail to address indirect competition or tackle customers who are questioning whether it's worthwhile to buy the category at all.

Proactive renovators are much more likely to distinguish among different types of threats and respond accordingly. Brand guru (and Prophet vice-chairman) David Aaker groups these threats as commoditization, brand lethargy, and changing customer dynamics:

• Declining brand differentiation underlies commoditization, which is characterized by increasing price competition, entry of low-cost competitors, and narrower margins.
  
• Brand lethargy is often a problem for category leaders who fall into the trap of repeating past success factors rather than updating the brand and keeping it fresh and alive.
  
• Brand relevance underlies customer dynamics issues. Changing technologies, lifestyle patterns, or attitudes typically cause a brand or a category to become less relevant to peoples' lives.

For decades, Coach focused on differentiating itself by handcrafting extremely durable and practical items with classic American designs in American factories. Between 2000 and 2007, it was able to accelerate brand growth from $500 million to $2.5 billion by creatively tackling leather goods' loss of relevance and lack of energy.
The company shed its handcrafted, American-made points of differentiation to leverage its core essence of classic, premium American design within the world of women's fashion accessories. It became more relevant and energetic by introducing color and fresh materials to its designs, transforming its assortment to provide a wide range of accessories and reinventing the Coach shopping experience.
Coach is the ultimate example of a proactive renovator that transformed itself into a category leader.

4. Apply the right strategies
Too many marketers think every brand issue can be solved with a new advertising and promotion campaign.

Of course, brand communication is an important component to building differentiation, energizing a brand, or building relevance. But, proactive renovators ensure that brand communications reflect fundamentally different strategies to cope with differentiation, brand energy, or relevance. One size will not fit all:

• Successful differentiation in commoditized categories almost always requires finding ways to provide more emotional reasons to prefer the brand. Emotional leverage enhances consumer credibility and trust in innovations that drive big margin gains and allows the brand to eke out small, but often crucial, margin advantages in older products. Emotional bonds provide a platform to charge more despite the competition. Staples's focus on ease (think "Easy Button") and expertise in small-business and home-office efficiency differentiates it from other superstores and lends permission to provide such value-added services as office delivery and computer repair to enhance loyalty and margins.
  
• Reinvigorating brand energy typically requires revamping the brand's imagery. A brand image in keeping with its promise makes it more noticeable, easier to understand, and more desirable. Marketers often think that refreshing the logo and trademark imagery is sufficient; that's rarely the case. User, usage, product, and associative imagery all must be explored to truly reinvigorate a brand. Sprite is one brand that regained energy by changing its user imagery to focus on young iconoclasts and its associative imagery to focus on the NBA.
  
• Relevance issues demand a re-examination of the customer experience. When consumers change the ways they shop, live, or use technology, the experience must adapt. Sometimes the adaptations include new offerings such as the salads and wraps that McDonald's has added to its menu to appeal to health-conscious women. Some adaptations encompass a comprehensive redesign of the entire experience, like Coach's store and product redesign to meet women's fashion accessory buying expectations.
  

* * *
These four best-practices expose one central truth: Customers must drive brand decisions.
To succeed, brand leaders must understand the brand through customers' eyes, track how different customer segments are changing, identify the different issues customers have in their lives, and link the brand to customer needs.

Competition... India style