NEW YORK — Big brand refreshes have been in vogue this 12 months, a trend that’s perhaps most apparent within the food and beverage category as legacy marketers put latest spins on old products. General Mills within the spring revamped its Gushers, Fruit Roll-Ups and Fruit by the Foot offerings for the primary time in eight years, though not due to the forms of headwinds that typically encourage a shakeup in marketing strategy, executives said during a discussion at Advertising Week New York on Wednesday.
“When we normally undergo a process like this … it’s since the brands are in trouble. They’ve lost share, they’re struggling,” Teman Evans, global head of design at General Mills, said during a panel with longtime agency partner Pearlfisher, which aided with the overhauls. “That wasn’t our case in any respect. These are brands which are incredibly popular.”
Instead, the refreshes were done to stave off disruptors and in preparation for the subsequent generation of shoppers, placing each brand under the portfolio in a more clearly defined “swim lane” targeting different age sets. Gushers received arguably essentially the most substantial makeover, looking for to connect with young adults who grew up with the snacks which are full of a fruit-juice center that bursts when bitten. The shift was also intended to position Gushers to compete more directly within the crowded candy category, where unseating established players could be difficult, according to Evans.
Fruit by the Foot, meanwhile, pivoted from a hyperactive ethos to a more “chill” positioning geared toward helping teenagers unwind from stress. The cohort today has to take care of the same old coming-of-age pressures — after-school activities, nagging parents, homework — all amplified under the unforgiving lens of social media, which is satirically a vital channel for reaching them.
“Before we actually pinned it down, we all the time talked about it by way of more, more, more,” said Evans, in a reference to how Fruit by the Foot keeps unrolling even whenever you expect it to stop. “What we finally realized was [the unrolling] was what our consumers were really using as chill time to decelerate.”
Finally, Fruit Roll-Up sought to shore up a message around serving as a “canvas for play” encouraging self-expression in young kids. The brand received the narrowest degree of change, though one that would still make a difference as General Mills looks to sustain momentum coming out of the pandemic.
While Evans claimed it continues to be too early to tell the “complete sales story” for the revamped products, which began hitting shelves last summer, he indicated market share and brand desire scores are moving in a positive direction. General Mills posted solid sales in its most up-to-date financial quarter, with revenue up 4% year-over-year.
“In some cases, design stops at what we call the highest of funnel,” said Evans. “Awareness is great — we’d like eyes — but we even have to convert those eyes into dollars and cents, and one of the best design does each.”
Out with the old
When assessing what to drop and what to keep within the refresh process, General Mills and its partners relied heavily on “memory cues.” The company would present consumers with a blank piece of paper and ask them to depict what they believed was representative of a given brand. Whatever showed up on the page was an asset value amplifying, according to Evans.
“What I like about that sort of research is stuff that you just assume is a memory cue isn’t, and things that perhaps you thought weren’t are,” the chief said.
Gushers, as an illustration, ended up not having a very memorable logo. The previous one was dropped in favor of a splashier black design that summons to mind nostalgic ‘90s kid touchstones just like the Nickelodeon splat.
The redesign, which incorporates a custom typeface, is supposed to imbue the brand with greater attitude and edge, supporting the push to age the product up to an older audience, said Hamish Campbell, vice chairman and executive creative director at Pearlfisher’s New York branch. It also recognizes the necessity to have a transparent identity beyond physical retail and packaging. Evans described the phenomenon of brands with samey social media pages where every post is a zoomed-in shot of product, with little flare to distinguish it from the pack.
“That is a telltale sign that they don’t have much to work with,” said Evans. “We did some internal soul-searching and we realized, if we’re going to show up in these comms channels where our consumers are, we’ve got to count those assets that move beyond just the box.”
“We can’t only think concerning the traditional retail space. We also [need to] take into consideration that e-commerce and digital space,” he added later.
New horizons
In line with the concept of stepping beyond packaging, General Mills has been investing more in sonic branding with the assistance of Made Music Studio. A recognizable tune can drive positive association and make a brand more memorable, Evans said, pointing to streaming services that could be identified by their startup noise alone.
“We want to create brand worlds, which implies we’re creating assets that fireplace across as lots of the senses as possible,” said Evans.
Hanging over the design and agency spaces is the specter of generative artificial intelligence, a significant topic at Advertising Week within the wake of ChatGPT mania. Questioned by the panel’s moderator, Ad Age reporter Erika Wheless, about his thoughts on AI, Evans affirmed that the human element will prevail whilst the newfangled tech holds promise on the innovation front.
“When you concentrate on the challenges, anything the AI touches, are you able to protect it by way of copyrights and trademarks?” said Evans. “That starts to get a little bit hairy and grey.”
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