It’s not easy entering a crowded category – but it helps if you’ve got the Tasmanian Devil on your side.
Taz, that whirling cartoon dervish, is one of several Warner Bros. Looney Tunes characters now appearing on boxes of Sweet Mornings, a new cereal brand introduced in March by Quebec City-based Biscuits Leclerc.
Scoring a deal with an international entertainment conglomerate like Warner is a major coup for an independent packaged goods manufacturer largely unknown outside of the Quebec market. But Jean-Louis Dufresne, communications advisor with Leclerc’s Montreal-based agency The BCP Group, says the company knew from the outset that if Sweet Mornings (‘Le P’tit Bonjour’ in French) was to stand any chance against the powerhouse brands of Kellogg, General Mills or Post, it needed instant notoriety.
‘When you want to compete against a tiger or a rooster, you have to hit hard right from the beginning,’ says Dufresne, making a pointed reference to the well-known Kellogg brand mascots Tony the Tiger and Cornelius.
While a number of private label cereal brands have appeared on supermarket shelves in recent years, Biscuits Leclerc is the first independent Canadian manufacturer to launch a brand of its own into this country’s $862-million breakfast cereal market since 1934, when consumers were introduced to Weetabix.
A family-owned company with 94 years of history behind it, Leclerc has ambitious plans for Sweet Mornings. It has already poured some $23 million into the construction of a new cereal-manufacturing plant in Quebec, and is planning to begin a national rollout of the brand in the fall.
Dufresne says the Looney Tunes characters represent a perfect match for the new cereal because of their high awareness levels among all age groups. And – an important point in Canada – the characters know no language barriers. ‘They are well liked by both the French and English,’ he says.
Furthermore, Warner’s research showed that each Looney Tunes character has its own distinct personality, which means that different characters can be tied effectively to different SKUs.
Bugs Bunny, for example, is much loved by adults – so he was linked to Sweet Mornings’ traditional corn flakes product. (‘A classic character for a classic cereal,’ says Dufresne.) Tweety Bird, meanwhile, has tremendous equity with women, who happen to be major consumers of crispy rice cereals. And Taz is a longstanding hit with young boys and teenagers, who are the leading fans of frosted flake cereals.
The Looney Tunes characters appear prominently on the Sweet Mornings boxes, and have been featured in store-level sampling programs in the Montreal and Quebec City markets.
The characters do not, however, star in the television spot that BCP has created for the brand. Dufresne says the approval process surrounding the on-air portrayal of trademarked characters such as these is simply too complicated and cumbersome.
Frederic Langlois, marketing manager for Biscuits Leclerc, says the licensing arrangement with Warner Bros. is a three-year deal, but the company hopes to keep it in place on a longer-term basis, possibly adding new characters to the mix as the Sweet Mornings product lineup expands.
Right now, he says, Biscuits Leclerc has two major priorities: getting the brand listed nationwide, and figuring out how to entice consumers to give it a try.
While the company plans to offer a modest price advantage on Sweet Mornings cereals, Langlois says the keys to establishing the brand will be advertising and in-store sampling efforts.
Sponsorship activities will also form part of the mix. This year, for example, the brand has signed on as a sponsor of the Montreal Grand Prix and the Festival d’été de Québec. ‘When we get into a product category, we don’t tiptoe,’ Langlois says.
One important advantage that the company enjoys, he adds, is a strong salesforce. Biscuits Leclerc reps practice the unusual policy of visiting participating stores at least once a week, which should help ensure that the brand gets the attention it warrants.
Langlois says the national rollout of Sweet Mornings will take about a year. By the end of that period, it should be clear whether the company has played its strategic cards right.
For most of its history, Biscuits Leclerc has focused its energies primarily on manufacturing cookies. At last count, it had 23 different cookie products on grocery store shelves across Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes.
In recent years, however, the company has expanded into production of granola bars (it is now Canada’s largest granola-bar producer, doing work mainly for private labels), as well as cereal bars and muffin bars under the Sweet Mornings brand name. The move into the cereal category – a process that began three years ago, according to Dufresne – was a logical next step.
If Sweet Mornings performs well nationally, the next step may well be to take the brand into foreign markets. Exports of the company’s other products to the U.S., Central America, South America and the U.K. already account for $20 million of its projected $125 million in sales for 1999.
Also in this report:
– Unibroue might be small but it’s thinking big: Quebec brewery has ambitious plans to crack other markets p.24
– Gaz Metropolitain pours energy into online efforts: Natural gas provider makes Internet a primary medium p.26
– Balloon festival flies up, up and away: Once on the verge of collapse, event has made a stunning recovery and is now among Quebec’s most popular summer attractions p.27
