Taste Them Again for the First Time
THE MEDIA Business concern: ADVERTISING
THE MEDIA BUSINESS: ADVERTISING; Kellogg enlists real people to stress the value of its breakfast.
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July xx, 1994
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THE Kellogg Visitor is extending aggressive efforts to modify consumer perceptions that the prices of its cereals are as high as the corn in Kansas in August.
Humorous television commercials and print advertisements by Leo Burnett U.Southward.A. promote the notion that the prices of three best-selling Kellogg brands -- Frosted Flakes, Raisin Bran and Rice Krispies -- are "merely part of the value in a Kellogg'southward breakfast."
They began actualization in June, v months after a like campaign for some other popular Kellogg cereal, Corn Flakes, which asserted that its average price of less than a quarter a bowl was "some other reason to taste them again for the first time."
Kellogg's strategy is to pour money -- just how much, the company won't say -- into campaigns aimed at altering shoppers' beliefs that after years of Kellogg's raising prices by an average of 5 to vi percentage annually, private-characterization and store-make cereals have get more economical buys.
By ane count, Kellogg raised prices v times betwixt January 1991 and March 1994, compared with three times for Full general Mills, No. ii behind Kellogg in the nation's estimated $8 billion set up-to-swallow cereal market.
"We believe the ads reinforce for consumers that they are getting a great value when they consume a Kellogg cereal," Karen MacLeod, a spokeswoman for Kellogg in Battle Creek, Mich., said.
"We feel nosotros've always been the value leader," she added, "and continue to exist."
A leader, yeah, only Kellogg'south lead has been shriveling faster than flakes nether milk. From 1988 to 1993, Kellogg's market place share brutal from 42.2 percent to 35 percentage, according to data compiled by John C. Maxwell Jr., an analyst with the Wheat First Butcher Singer brokerage firm in Richmond. Rising sales of lower-priced culling brands, though notwithstanding tiny over all, accept cutting into Kellogg'southward results, equally take a paucity of successful new products and gains by rivals like Post, Quaker and Ralston Purina.
The commercials for the three brands, like their Corn Flakes precursor, feature unscripted vignettes of consumers rather than actors. They were directed by Gary Weiss of 1/33 Productions in New York, who formerly made curt films for "Saturday Night Live."
Each spot centers on a make's familiar characters or slogans. The commercial for Frosted Flakes asks, "Would you spend xxx cents to have breakfast with Tony?" referring to the brand's tiger mascot; it is set up, accordingly, in a zoo.
The commercial for Raisin Bran plays off that brand'south longtime "2 scoops of raisins" theme to inquire, "Hey, have yous heard the latest scoop?" The answer comes as a homo holds aloft a stack of newspapers -- presumably The Battle Creek Enquirer -- bearing the banner headline "Kellogg's Raisin Bran for 45 cents."
And the commercial for Rice Krispies, shot at a higher, offers a "Snap, Crepitation, Pop quiz," invoking the make'southward trio of elf-similar pixies. Later on people fail to gauge that a serving of Rice Krispies costs 35 cents, i human mangles their names as "Snackle, Crack, Apop."
Walter Maes, an executive vice president and grouping creative managing director with Burnett in Chicago, said, "You lot could never write anything like that."
"There's a level of communication there I tin can't explain," he added. "When a real person's talking about something, I believe it much more than an announcer."
The belief levels among cereal industry analysts vary.
Nomi Ghez of Goldman, Sachs & Visitor in New York called Kellogg's entrada "a good thought."
"From a public relations and consumer relations betoken of view, it's ameliorate to maintain lower prices," she said, "but that'southward clearly not Kellogg's decision."
Data "show consumers with split up personalities," she added, because while private-label brands "are growing at a faster rate than branded cereals, at the same fourth dimension consumers keep to purchase more cereal and the total marketplace is growing."
"If consumers really idea cereal was way overpriced and there were less expensive alternatives," Ms. Ghez said, "they'd buy them."
Mr. Maxwell of Wheat First said that Full general Mills "has gone one-up on Kellogg" by trying to enhance its market share, at 29 percent last yr, past reducing suggested retail prices of 10 best-selling brands like Cheerios, Trix and Wheaties. General Mills is promoting those reductions, which average eleven percent, in a campaign carrying the theme "Good cereal, adept value."
"When your major competitor puts banners on 40 percent of its boxes saying 'Now! Lower price!,' information technology puts some pressure on y'all to either lower your prices or tell consumers your prices are low enough," said John M. McMillin of Prudential Securities in New York.
"I guess Kellogg took the lesser of two evils," he added.
The Kellogg campaign also serves to "tell consumers it's O.Thousand. to buy cereal without a coupon," Mr. McMillin said -- a crucial goal because Kellogg, as well as General Mills, is trying to wean shoppers from short-term promotions by reducing the flood of cents-off coupons they issue.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/20/business/media-business-advertising-kellogg-enlists-real-people-stress-value-its.html
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