This story appears in the February/March 2016 issue of strategy.

Silver: Off to a Good Start

Situation Analysis:

For over 50 years, Kraft Peanut Butter (KPB) had been the market leader with three-quarters of Canadians eating it every week. But new competitors led to a creeping commoditization of the category while innovative nut spreads like almond, cashew and soy nut butters were rapidly expanding. KPB was neither the newest, healthiest or cheapest, putting at risk its market-leading position as brand penetration began to dip. For just about every functional attribute, KPB was either at parity or worse than the competition and didn’t have the health credentials of the new nut butters.

Insight & Strategy:

Functional offerings like quality, nutrition and freshness are important to consumers but are considered cost of entry to the category. The brand needed to make a connection with millennial parents by understanding how KPB had become a national icon. Many Canadians saw peanut butter as more than just food, bringing to mind notions of unity, fond memories of families coming together at the breakfast table over peanut butter. This led to the insight that KPB was such a beloved food in Canada because, for years, it had brought families together. Research showed the concept of meaningful connections had evolved in that, while its importance hadn’t diminished at all, coming together to spend quality time with family had become increasingly elusive.

Execution:

Running from April 2014 to December 2014 nationally with a $2 to $3 million spend on television, online video, Facebook video and in-store display, the iconic bears from the brand logo told the story of how Kraft Peanut Butter helped Canadians “Stick Together.”

Crunchy and Smoothy – two soft plush replicas of the Kraft bears available from Kraft Canada’s e-retail site – became the physical manifestation of “Sticking Together.”

Results:

Following a poor year when KPB had lost share to its competitors, the brand achieved its highest penetration ever, with an increase of 1.6 percentage points in a year where overall category penetration went down. As a consequence, baseline volume sales increased by 4.5% compared to the previous year.

Cause & Effect:

The “Lifelong Love” TV ad generated above norm levels of enjoyment (78%) and ability to hold consumers’ attention (71%) while driving a 91% purchase intent. The first six months of the campaign saw a 275% increase in engagement rate on Facebook compared to the previous six-month period. The “Friends Forever” digital video was viewed over 530,000 times, and the campaign garnered over 8,600,500 impressions over 127,000 unique user engagements. About 7,500 Crunchy and Smoothy bears sold online in addition to 80,000 bears in-store.

Credits:

Client: Kraft Canada

Senior director, grocery brands: Leisha Roche

Brand director, Kraft Peanut Butter: Amy Rawlinson

Senior brand manager: Aaron Nemoy

Associate brand manager: Amanda Smith

Agency: Taxi

ECD: Jeff MacEachern

ACDs: Kelsey Horne, Alexis Bronstorph

Digital designer: Melissa Zeta

VP, integrated production: Cynthia Heyd

Executive producer: Steve Emmens

Agency producer: Nicole Poon

Senior brand planner: Justine Feron

Account directors: Leanne Goldstein, Kirstin Bojanowski

Account manager: Stacy Ross