A venerable cereal brand is using an anniversary as a way to reintroduce itself as well as to introduce a line extension meant to appeal to more contemporary tastes.
The cereal is Post Grape-Nuts, which has been around since 1897. The brand and its siblings like Alpha-Bits, Great Grains, Honey Bunches of Oats, Pebbles and Shredded Wheat are sold by a company named Post Foods, spun off last year from Ralcorp.
By now, most consumers probably know that a package of Grape-Nuts contains neither grapes nor nuts, but rather crunchy nuggets made of wheat and barley. (There is also a variety with flakes in place of nuggets, Grape-Nuts Flakes.)
Grape-Nuts has long been marketed as a healthful and natural cereal, predating the current popularity of pitches that play up those qualities. It was even a favorite among explorers, who took it along as part of their supplies for expeditions.
Among the adventurers who were fueled by Grape-Nuts was Edmund Hillary, who in 1953, along with Tenzing Norgay, was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest. The 60th anniversary of the Hillary ascent is the centerpiece of a campaign for Grape-Nuts and the new variety, Grape-Nuts Fit, which carries the theme "What's your mountain?"
The campaign, with a budget estimated at more than $10 million, is created by an agency in Toronto named Birthplace, which is part of the Grey Group division of WPP. Hunter Public Relations in New York is also working on the campaign.
The campaign includes a commercial, promotions, events, sampling, a mobile app, content on the Post Foods Web site and Patch.com and a presence in social media like Facebook.
Among the events is one scheduled for Wednesday — 60 years to the day that Mr. Hillary achieved his feat — in Herald Square in Midtown Manhattan, which is to feature a 30-foot rock wall for passers-by to climb. The climbers can plant at the top of the wall pennants in purple — a Grape-Nuts color — that ask "What's your mountain?"
Also on Wednesday, free samples of Grape-Nuts Fit will be distributed to climbers and hikers at various peaks and trails around the country.
The "What's your mountain?" theme is intended to serve as a kind of mantra, wake-up call or clarion cry, encouraging consumers to tackle challenges and achieve goals the way Mr. Hillary did 60 years ago. The Grape-Nuts Facebook fan page asks, "What mountain are you conquering today?"
In the commercial, an announcer describes how Grape-Nuts — "packed with protein and nutritious grains" — helped Mr. Hillary get to the peak of Mount Everest.
"Now, the highest point on earth is a long way from the breakfast table," the announcer continues, "but if Grape-Nuts cereal helped Hillary reach the top of his mountain, just imagine where it could take you."
Grape-Nuts is not alone in seeking to engage consumers with pointed questions about fulfilling their potential. For instance, Hennessy Cognac introduced a campaign early last year that personified the quest to achieve by asking, "What's your wild rabbit?" and concluding, "Never stop. Never settle."
"The Grape-Nuts consumer is free-spirited and independent-minded," says Mangala D'Sa, who as the brand director for what Post Foods calls its healthy brands oversees Grape-Nuts along with Great Grains, Post Raisin Bran and Shredded Wheat.
Grape-Nuts consumers are also "demanding a lot from their food in terms of nutrition," says Ms. D'Sa, who is based in Parsippany, N.J., and have a lot in common with the buyers of Shredded Wheat, who "are looking for simple ingredients" in what they eat.
The current Grape-Nuts buyer tends to be "more of a boomer, 50-plus crowd," Ms. D'Sa says, referring to the baby-boom generation, so to help the brand attract new customers the campaign is intended to appeal to a somewhat younger audience.
Also intended to reach a younger audience is Grape-Nut Fit, which contains nuggets that are "lightly crunchy," as the package proclaims, meaning less crunchy than the original Grape-Nuts nuggets, which detractors have likened to gravel or pebbles — not Pebbles, as in its sibling Post cereal, but as in small rocks.
Grape-Nuts lovers are "very passionate about the crunch," Ms. D'Sa says, "but a lot of people find it intimidating in that it is very crunchy." So Grape-Nuts Fit offers what she calls "a fluffier nugget," along with added ingredients like granola, cranberries and a vanilla flavor, none of which are found in Grape-Nuts.
The "What's your mountain?" theme is found on the backs of packages of Grape-Nuts Fit as well as Grape-Nuts. Both declare, "From Everest to the everyday, Grape-Nuts has the power-packed nutrition you need to reach the top!"
The theme "emphasizes the spirit and the adventure of someone like Hillary," Ms. D'Sa says, and presents Grape-Nuts as "giving someone the fuel to reach" his or her goal, reflecting how "the Grape-Nuts consumer sees food as fuel."
To underscore that approach, the commercial is running on shows like "The Amazing Race" and "Survivor" as well as on programs on the Discovery cable channel.
"Our Grape-Nuts consumers aren't big TV watchers," Ms. D'Sa says. "They're out there participating in the world, not on the couch eating a bag of chips."
Among the fans of Grape-Nuts is Patrick Scissons, chief creative officer at Birthplace, who describes it as "kind of like the original nature cereal," evoking the commercials from the 1970s that featured the outdoors enthusiast Euell Gibbons.
Grape-Nuts "needed a bit of dust-off," Mr. Scissons says, if for no other reason "the number of new players, other natural cereals" that now crowd store shelves.
The agency's mission was "re-finding the relevancy" of the brand, he adds, "and making it a little more current."
Taking advantage of the Everest anniversary to achieve that is a kind of back-to-the-future idea, a way of saying Grape-Nuts provides "the energy to get on with your day," Mr. Scissons says, as it provided energy to the Everest expedition.
"To us, that's the ultimate endorsement and proof point in terms of sustainable energy," he says of the 1953 conquest of Everest, and the campaign uses the mountain as "a metaphor for whatever your life goal is."
"Hillary is the start of the story," he adds. "It isn't just a history lesson, it's a call to action."
The "What's your mountain?" theme is "conducive to conversation in social media," Mr. Scissons says, "and the entire platform is a great conversation starter." For instance, people can write their own goals on the purple pennants that are distributed at the events like the rock-wall climb.
The campaign is the first for Grape-Nuts since Post Foods became a separate company from Ralcorp. Under the ownership of Ralcorp, there was an effort in 2009, aimed at men, that carried the theme "That takes Grape-Nuts." The ads took a tongue-in-cheek tack that sought to make the brand name a synonym for fortitude.
Grape-Nuts, and Post, have had "multiple owners," as Ms. D'Sa puts it, that in addition to Ralcorp included Kraft Foods and General Foods.
"Priorities shifted and changed" during those years, she adds, but now, with Post Foods its own company, there is a desire to focus on revitalizing "a diamond brand" like Grape-Nuts.
There have been previous efforts at line extensions for Grape-Nuts, which included Grape-Nuts O's and Grape-Nuts Trail Mix Crunch. Alas, they have both been sent to that great supermarket in the sky, joining other cereal brands like C.W Post, Pep, OJ's, OK's, Sugar and Crispy Critters, remembered for its jingle, with music borrowed from "The Nutcracker," as "the one and only cereal that comes in the shape of animals."
•
If you like In Advertising, be sure to read the Advertising column that appears Monday through Friday in the Business Day section of The New York Times print edition and on nytimes.com.
29 May, 2013
-
Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNE96P4Nkeyyet6P4YVFbjQz2VVAzQ&url=http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/business/media/grape-nuts-wants-you-to-climb-every-mountain.html?pagewanted=all
--
Manage subscription | Powered by rssforward.com