The deal that linked breakfast tables and babies' bottoms
By Jonathan Birchall in New York
Published: April 25 2008 03:00 | Last updated: April 25 2008 03:00
In the breakfast cereal aisle of a Manhattan supermarket, a box of General Mills' Cheerios is advertising a special offer. A small green panel offers the chance to save $1.50 on a box of Pampers disposable
nappies, made by Procter & Gamble.
Over in the babycare aisle, packs of Pampers return the favour - with an image of a small round Cheerio linked with the brand's heart logo, and a coupon to save $1.50 on any packet of the cereal.
The on-pack coupon promotions are part of the "together for bright mornings" marketing campaign the two brands launched at the start of the year, highlighting a relationship bet-ween breakfast cereal and babies' bottoms that might not otherwise have been apparent.
Pampers, says the panel on the cereal packet, can help babies sleep better by helping to stop "leaks", while Cheerios, the wheat cereal, has been recommended by one in five US paediatricians as a first "finger food" for toddlers.
The campaign is the latest example of the consumer product industry's pursuit of what it calls "customer focused" innovation, bringing together two companies that might not otherwise have realised their complementary relationship. Just as Nike and Apple looked at joggers listening to music and teamed up in 2005 to create the Nike+ running system, which combines running shoes and iPods, so Cheerios looked at its customers and saw the wisdom of a tie-up with Pampers.
The initiative, says Becky O'Grady, marketing director for Cheerios, was about "being very consumer focused, really trying to be led by insights into their needs, and putting that into the marketing".
Behind the alliance lay an effort by Cheerios to look more closely at its consumers. It started segmenting them at the end of last year into four distinct groups: health-conscious adults, families, children and young parents, the target of the joint promotion with Pampers.
"The foundation of the brand is the first finger-food moment - which means moms [with children] in the one to two age group - and if you talk to consumers . . . where they first and most emotionally connected with the brand, that life stage is at the centre," says Ms O'Grady.
Cheerios' marketing campaign includes a parents' section of the brand website that lists tips and articles on parenting, as well as a gallery of users' photos, with their own brief anecdotes or tips.
The children's section, in contrast, provides cartoons and computer games.
In
the supermarkets, Cheerios has also started appearing alongside baby
food. General Mills has created a new refillable plastic "toddler
pack", holding just over an ounce of cereal. The new packages appeared
shortly after Nestlé's baby food company Gerber launched its Fruit
Puffs, cereal-style finger food. The re-usable containers, says Ms
O'Grady, were created after observing parents putting Cheerios in
plastic bags as a portable snack for their infants.
The tie-up with Pampers came through their mutual advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi Americas. Saatchi, says Ms O'Grady, "was at the core of bringing the two groups together and saying, here's a non-competitive area where you can get together and really understand the moms and what they want," she says.
The idea occurred, according to Mary Baglivo, chief executive of the advertising division, when two groups working on the separate accounts happened to start talking to each other. "They arrived at the thought that we could do some co-marketing together . . . that it would be fantastic for the business, and drive sales while contributing to each others' brand equity."
Saatchi, whose advertising philosophy currently focuses on building emotional relationships with customers, argues that the tie-up "pushed forward" the emotional equity in the brands, which in Ms Baglivo's view, "have a connection not just from the fact that they target the same group . . . but a connection in emotion and tonality".
For Cheerios, however, parents are only one of its target customer groups, and the link with Pampers has to work alongside its other targeted marketing.
Ms O'Grady says the brand, which was first launched in 1946, needs to perform "a balancing act, and to talk about how to address to those consumers in the right way, and not to do anything that would alienate any particular group at any particular time".
"I think we've balanced that in a way that is true to the brand," she says of the Pampers link-up.
Ms Baglivo argues that emotion is the key, which is why it is acceptable to read about Pampers on the back of a breakfast cereal packet.
"I think most people, when they see anything to do with a baby, tend to go to the cute and sweet side and not the down
and dirty side . . we have never had any polarising comments," she says.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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