Welch’s marketing has seen a gear shift lately, with the packaged foods marketer once known for TV spots featuring precocious tots embracing experiential activations like a rosé truck and, most recently, a pop-up speakeasy hidden inside a New York City bodega.
The millennial-friendly pivot has been driven by a desire to be related to greater than just grapes, with Welch’s undergoing a rebrand and widening its product assortment to incorporate offerings reminiscent of canned cocktails and a line of zero-sugar juices that debuted in August. Concord, Massachusetts-based Welch’s, which is over 150 years old, continues to be owned by an agricultural cooperative of grape growers, but that doesn’t mean its marketing must feel fusty.
Welch’s CMO Scott Utke
Permission granted by Welch’s
Spearheading the marketing charge is CMO Scott Utke, who joined Welch’s nearly 4 years ago after prior stints at CPG giants like Campbell’s and Kraft. Marketing Dive caught up with Utke at Welch’s Zero Bodega speakeasy in late January to debate the chief’s larger brand-building mandate, along together with his evolving perspective on agencies and retail media. Following the interview, Welch’s confirmed that it’s putting the creative roster for its sparkling juices portfolio under review and enacting a bigger shift away from an agency-of-record model after those duties — including the rebrand — were previously handled by Fitzco.
“Our various platforms — juices, spreads and sparkling — all have different creative needs so we’re making this strategic shift away from working with a single creative AOR to make sure we’re catering to the various needs of every,” Utke said in a follow-up email. “We are excited for the chance to search out the fitting partner for our Sparkling business specifically, bringing fresh ideas and creativity to this necessary a part of our portfolio.”
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
MARKETING DIVE: It’s been a bit of over a yr since Welch’s rebranded. What were the strategic goals you had and what’s the progress on realizing those goals?
SCOTT UTKE: It had been a protracted time since we had modified anything. When we talked to consumers, that they had a variety of passion for the brand, but they were rooting for it to do something different. It felt a bit of staid. We knew we had a possibility by way of repositioning but how do you bring that together visually? It hadn’t been done up to now.
The packaging work was the inception. Across all of our packs, we added the actual fruit imagery, we modified the brand and we desired to get our message in regards to the growers on the side of the pack. That took a few yr and a half. In addition, we had a brand new ad campaign, “Let’s Fruit Stuff Up.” The goal was to get people to think in another way about Welch’s and move beyond grape. Then, we wanted to fireside up the innovation engine. We did that first through recent flavors, including the brand new passion fruit sparkling [juice].
Our biggest launch was gearing up for Welch’s Zero Sugar. This is now the largest launch that I could find in Welch’s history by way of investment.
What are different levers you pull now when you consider a big media investment versus 10 and even 15 years ago?
It’s still about getting awareness and getting trial out. We do it in another way than we’ve up to now because most of our media buy goes to be digital. The other piece of it’s: How will we get consumers more engaged within the product? We did TV, but we did it through a partnership with Kelly Clarkson with some sponsored spots and product on air. We also dabbled in podcasts. We worked with Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” where he did some voice-overs and ads around Zero Sugar.
There’s the Zero Bodega experience that we’re sitting in today, which is getting consumers to experience the brand first hand. It’s at all times been a unusual brand. We’re still leveraging that and attempting to bring that to life.
I’ve read reports about CMO budgets declining. When you discuss your biggest campaign launch ever, do you’re feeling like you could have more resources or do you could have to be thrifty?
When I got here to Welch’s, we were underspending as a brand. I needed to make the case to the board about what our fair proportion of spending needs to be. We agreed to what that number looked like and what that cadence can be over time. We’ve had a pair years under our belt to give you the option to accumulate what our investment is against the brand after which we’ve needed to make a call: If we’re going to have an enormous launch, we pull the dollars and do one thing rather well as an alternative of spreading it out into a variety of little things.
We have a pipeline of other innovation ideas that we’ve coming down the pike, but we’ve a commitment from the growers and the board that we’re going to proceed to take a position behind this business in order that we will get the spending to a healthy level.
The doing “a variety of little things” approach appears to be more common.
There’s bifurcation from a media perspective. There’s loads more options and loads more ways to succeed in consumers, which I believe actually is an excellent thing. It permits you to catch up with to consumers and more targeted. But you’re right, with regards to dollars, we’ve to be really choiceful by way of where we’re going to position that bet and the way we’re going to drive growth over time.
How much experiential marketing did the brand do up to now?
We haven’t found any good examples which have been done up to now. Last June was the primary time we put our toe within the water. We did a rosé truck for Rosé Day. We began small in Boston and it did a pair things for us: One, it made us realize how much brand love we’ve in that area. We said, “Man, if we could just do that on an even bigger scale, that might be great.” It also got people talking about not only the products we sell, but additionally what you possibly can do with them. It created all of those recent usage occasions.
With the Zero launch, as we were talking about what makes essentially the most sense, a pop-up like this has a consumer angle to it but it surely’s also about getting closer to the media, getting closer to influencers. Since New York is a hub, this location made a ton of sense.
Our agency Superdigital and my marketing team had a variety of fun with the speakeasy. You have the normal store on the opposite side that after which, on this side, we wanted a reveal, almost like “The Wizard of Oz” going to paint from black and white. This brand is over 150 years old, it’s got a wealthy history. While we’re moving in recent directions, we still wish to hearken back to what people know us for.
Is there a target market for the experiences? Is it a market that was previously underserved?
If you take a look at Welch’s overall, we were a bit of little bit of an older brand. We had a little bit of an older consumer. We’re those next generations, whether it’s millennials or Gen Z by way of the full brand. When it involves Zero, what we found is it’s more of a segmentation of people who find themselves on the lookout for no sugar. We appeal to anybody that’s on the lookout for no sugar and desires full-flavor taste.
You mentioned Superdigital handles experiential stuff and Fitzco does creative. That’s an agency of record appointment?
It is. We use multiple agencies, but Fitzco did “Let’s Fruit Stuff Up” by way of the large relaunch. Generally, they’re our agency of record, but we’re flexible.
The way a legacy marketer like Welch’s approaches agency relationships is pretty different today. AOR can mean a special thing.
One-hundred percent. I believe in the normal sense, AOR can be you could have an agency that works on all your enterprise and you’ll work with them for a few years. The way we take a look at it now, it’s fit for purpose. Fitzco was fit for purpose as we were on the lookout for find out how to relaunch the brand. What we liked about them is that they understood the duty they usually had passion for our brand. Our next innovation, we may go in a special direction.
It may be a bit of selfish on our part, but we wish to search out the very best work for the brand. We need to use our greenbacks very efficiently. We’re the touchpoints that make essentially the most sense. Some of those things could also be through an agency and retail media networks and national media in order that we will get the fitting reach, but then there are areas where we wish to be specific. We want the pliability to not be held to an old standard of staying with the identical agencies over time but ensuring to usher in the very best and brightest for the job to be done.
Retail media is evolving fast and CPGs are wondering if the sophistication can keep pace with the extent of investment. What do you see as the largest challenges and opportunities?
The biggest opportunity is that a variety of the retail media networks have a direct reference to the patron and the trail to buy is well-defined. Someone like Walmart, for instance, they’ve a variety of reach, they’re very efficient in understanding who their consumer is they usually can provide us a good amount of information to grasp return on ad spend and the way much is being converted to buy.
Over time, we’re continuously attempting to balance brand constructing opportunities with converting and creating sales. Figuring that balance out is what tends to be the challenge with regards to retail media since it feels so conversion based. That and the incrementality.
Are you energetic on TikTok in any respect and what do you make of all this ban back-and-forth?
TikTok will not be one in all our biggest channels, but it surely’s an area — especially as we discuss showing up with the fitting generation — where we must be, 100%. At the top of the day, the patron will find an answer that either is a special version of TikTok, meaning one other owner, or they’ll find one other medium to benefit from the same advantages that TikTok provides today. To me, it’s more of a spot in time hiccup. I don’t see it as a long-term concern.
How do you approach artificial intelligence?
We at all times attempt to carve out 10% of our budget to try things we’ve never done before. There’s already some efficiencies that we’re seeing now with AI and that’s going to proceed to grow. The strategic considering that’s required and the extent of understanding of our consumer, it’s going to take a while for AI to learn the intricacies.
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