Press Play to Innovate
By Nick Foley, Managing Director, Landor
The past year saw many companies place more emphasis on innovation as retailers placed greater pressure on brands in mature categories to justify their existence. There are many models of innovation, but sometimes just having a simple and playful approach can lead to a great outcome. Faced with a portfolio of brands in a relatively mature category, in 2010 the team at Top Taste (George Weston) opted to bring some news to the market by creating a lighthearted new brand with the launch of Yummy Tummy Koalas.
While many companies have brought ageing, stand-alone brands under familiar master brands in recent years, some brand custodians have gone against the trend with varying levels of success.
Over the past year the cakes and ingredients team at Top Taste have worked with Landor to create a new brand in the cakes and slices category. The size of the category in Australia is approximately $490 million with value growth over the past year of around 10 percent. Innovation has not always been top of mind in this category with competitive pressure stemming from adjacent categories, other channels, and the ongoing encroachment of private label.
The key difference in the creation of Yummy Tummy Koalas has been the collaboration between both client and agency. From an early stage in the creation process both the Top Taste team and Landor widened the aperture to create something that would resonate strongly with the target audience yet be thoroughly distinct from any other brand in the supermarket.
The brief was simple: to create a subbrand with character and personality, capitalising on the koala product format, from the box right through to the rewind, with a level of interaction for kids. The creative team were excited and inspired by a truly differentiated product concept.
What made this brief different from most was the flexibility. Some of the greatest creative concepts yield from autonomy. Instead of applying a series of filters to what the new brand should be and how it should talk to the target audience, the marketing team provided the freedom to create an entirely new brand that engaged the consumer in a thoroughly unique manner.
The result? A fun, playful, evocative brand with a refreshing identity loaded with personality. Rather than approach the brand creation process by defining values, attributes, and beliefs we focused purely on personality. Similar to how characters are written into a movie, the creative team set out to develop three quite disparate personalities capable of being brought to life on pack.
Cake packaging is similar to breakfast cereal packs in regards to the sheer amount of real estate available to not only convey the brand, but put a story behind it. The pack was viewed as a canvas for developing the personalities of three quintessential Australians: Cath, Kevin, and Bruce. Every facet of the pack was used right down to the space for communicating the Australian-made claim in a manner reflective of the personalities of the brand.
Innovation is often presented in a complex light and consequently seen as difficult. The launch of Yummy Tummy Koalas demonstrates how innovative solutions can be achieved through simplicity and collaboration. In this instance the brand personality has led to a unique and engaging position that is manifested in the product going beyond what is normally expected from the packaging.
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