Brand management is not a theoretical, academic or ad agency construct. Brand management takes disciplined minds and strategic work. Brand management takes adherence to principles. Brand management takes both analytic and lateral thinking.
There are countless examples of excellent, compelling, and enduring brand management, each with a spot-on market focus that connects with customers regardless of the decade: Nike’s Just Do It, Apple’s Think Different, and McDonald’s I’m Lovin’ It, to name a few. Here is one more example, Snickers.
In 1992, the Snickers brand team reviewed and contemporized the Snickers brand. This review required that Snickers, the chocolate fill bar from Mars, undergo a rigorous reexamination of its brand promise.
This article is part of Branding Strategy Insider’s newsletter. You can sign up here to get thought pieces like this sent to your inbox.
The Snickers project was the first brand to participate as part of a larger project to reexamination the Brand Frameworks of all of Mars’ big brands. This work conducted in 1992 is still visible in Snickers communications.
Every Mars brand had a Brand Framework. A Brand Framework provides the non-negotiable guidelines and policies that define a brand’s common customer experience, including the brand’s Brand promise. The Framework creates the brand’s boundary lines within which the brand is to be communicated and delivered.
A Brand Framework also includes the brand vision and the description of the target customer. The Brand Framework explains how to bring a brand to life by executing within the parameters of defined service and design guidelines, service behaviors, specific brand standards, trademark policy and other non-negotiable items that have to do with people, product, place, price and promotion.
Marketers evaluate and activate all action on behalf of the brand against this Brand Framework. The Brand Framework is a dynamic document, which is enriched and refreshed to reflect new learning and to keep the brand relevant.
A Brand Framework only works when there is Freedom within the Framework. Freedom within the Framework allows for local and regional relevance within the Brand Framework guardrails that ensure global coherence. The Brand Framework is the bridge across the global-regional divide. Freedom within the Framework means that all those working on behalf of the brand are encouraged to be creative in determining how to attract customers and potential customers as long as everyone is working within the boundaries of the framework.
The Snickers project began to take shape when a Mars executive from the UK came to Hackettstown, NJ (where M&M Mars North America had its headquarters). On his visit, the UK executive visited a mall near the office sometime in the mid-afternoon. The executive noticed that young adults were walking around the mall with portable, hand-held snacks, none of which were confectionary bars.
Shoppers ate slices of pizza, large cookies, French fries, bags of salty chips and popcorn. He recounted this observation as the Snickers team was thinking about the Snicker’s brand benefits. The young adults in the mall were hungry. Cruising the food court, they found foods to satiate their hunger. Snickers chocolate fill bar could easily have been an option. Snickers is delicious, filling and hunger satisfying. Snickers is portable, hand-held and can easily fit into a bookbag, a briefcase or a purse.
One barrier to overcome was that Mars viewed the Snickers competitive set as other confectionary products. The executive’s observation from outside of Mars’ comfort zone made the team rethink Snickers’ competitive set. Rethinking the competitive set required rethinking the Snickers’ brand promise and its market focus.
Mars understood how customers make purchase decisions. The team looked at a market as a want. What customers want is defined by who they are, why they want the product or service and how-when-where they use the product or service. A brand – the what a customer wants – must relevantly, uniquely and profitably address that specific customer who has a specific need in a specific occasion.
Then, the customer considers this: is the brand permissible? Permissibility is the filter that helps customers decide which alternatives go into the competitive set. Permissibility is the customer’s permission to believe that he or she is making the right choice, the smart choice. To be permissible, the brand must be justifiable and allowable.
In the customer’s decision-making process, those permissible brands in the competitive set are considered for purchase. Research has continued to show that as humans, customers usually have 3 to 4 brands in any competitive set. Hopefully, your brand delivers on its expected promised experience time and again, creating brand loyalty.
The discussion in the small room with Mars leaders, ad agency luminaries and two consultants, focused on who was the customer for Snickers, what was the need and what was the context. Snickers was currently positioned for mothers who want to feel good by offering delicious confectionary and the Snickers personality was Snickers is children. Bagged confectionary (smaller sizes) was particularly important in this context.
Redefining the competitive set was key to establishing Snickers as an anytime food, satisfying intrusive hunger as the perfect fill. Snickers was more portable than a pizza slice and its ingredients were more satiating than a bag of chips or French fries. Snickers filled up the “hunger hole” in your stomach, without being over-filling, so you could get on with your important activities.
The Snickers team redefined the market: young adult males, 18-22, who are doing a mental or physical task but are distracted from performing the task by hunger. For example, studying for an exam late at night. Or getting ready for afternoon soccer practice. This distracting hunger hits the target audience outside of the home. The hunger is so distracting that the young adult cannot concentrate on the task at hand. Snickers, which is easy to find and buy, can replace a meal but Snickers is not a meal replacement. Snickers could be a meal in a bar. (Note that in 1992, the energy bar/granola bar marketplace was barely existent.)
The remit was to convince the target audience that Snickers is a delicious, substantial hunger-satisfying alternative to an away-from-home meal. Convince the target audience that Snickers is a better way to satisfy this intrusive hunger than pizza, yogurt, frozen yogurt, muffin, cookie, hot dog or hamburger.
The main copy point was to convince young adult males that when distracted by hunger away from home, you are just not yourself until you sate the hunger, and nothing satisfies this intrusive hunger better than Snickers. Snickers stops your hunger from getting in your way. Nothing solves the problem of distracting, intrusive hunger as well as Snickers.
The support for this direction was that Snickers is best because Snickers is made of fresh egg whites, fresh roasted peanuts, caramel, all enrobed in fresh milk chocolate.
Using a Brand Pyramid construct for articulating a brand’s promise, the Snickers team renovated the Snickers Brand Promise.
A Brand Pyramid identifies the specific relevance and differentiation of the brand experience summarized in a Brand Promise Statement. The Brand Pyramid consists of the five levels of the brand’s relevant differentiation:
- The Brand Claim
- The Brand Character
- The Brand Support
A Brand Promise Statement comes directly from the Brand Pyramid output. The Brand Promise Statement summarizes in a brief sentence (or two) the special contract that exists between a brand and its customers. A Brand Promise Statement describes what a brand is intended to stand for in the mind of a specific group of customers and/or prospects. By consistently living up to the Brand Promise, we can ensure that our brands will be relevant and distinctive.
The revised Snickers Brand Promise statement focused on determined, focused individuals who need to get on with their activities by satisfying their pre-occupying hunger with a delicious wholesome, substantial food from a genuine brand with energetic enthusiasm.
Changing the Brand Pyramid and Brand Promise was critical step. But, product design was also critical.
Mars understood that the bite height of the Snickers bar was important, more important than bar width. Physiological data show that the higher the bite, the wider you open your mouth, the more your mind says, “Big food on the way.” And, Snickers needed to be perceived as big enough to satisfy pre-occupying hunger. Mars raised the bite height and narrowed the width so that the weight of the Snickers bars was the same but the perception was of a bigger food.
Additionally, Snickers had to be chewy. The more a person chews, the more the perception that this is a lot of food. Snickers’ ingredients (nougat, peanuts and caramel) delivered on chewiness with a balanced sweet and savory taste that enhanced the “food” aspect over a ‘dessert’ aspect.
Snickers also had to clear the mouth quickly. The taste of the food should not linger in the mouth. Snickers’ ingredients such as caramel and chocolate have quick mouth clear.
Furthermore, research with doctors, nutritionists and psychologists showed the physiological and psychological universal dimensions, of why people snack. Unlike M&Ms which satisfies needs for indulgence, belonging and extending time, Snickers design suited energy (refueling), nourishment and hunger satisfaction.
As additional support, there was the 1991 Consensus Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, “International Scientific Consensus Conference on Foods, Nutrition and Sports Performance.” This conference and its paper, prior to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, brought together international experts on sports nutrition and members of the IOC Medical Commission. The conference co-chair was Professor Clyde Williams of Loughborough University, UK. The results of the conference were endorsed by the President of the IOC Medical Commission. The results included data showing that energy carbohydrates and fat are necessary for athletes’ refueling needs. Snickers was not mentioned by name even though Mars sponsored the event. However, the energy, fat and carbohydrate balance of a Snickers bar met the criteria for athletic consumption.
When it came to food and nutrition, Mars was committed to the science. Provide trusted information that is scientifically accurate as well as up-to-date. The science of sports nutrition is a way to validate that foods such as Snickers have nutritional value.
The 1992 reevaluation of Snickers and the rearticulation of its Brand Framework still seem to be at the heart of Snickers communications. The 1992 efforts emphasize certain brand management facts; First, how you run your brand is how you run your business and vice versa. Second, brand management is business management, and vice versa. Third, brands can live forever but only if properly managed. Fourth, use the principles and construct and disciplined marketing thinking to create a compelling Brand Framework for your brand. And, fifth, when your brand differentially and relevantly solve a specific person’s specific need in a specific occasion, that brand will grow, endure and be profitable.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Joan Kiddon, Partner, The Blake Project, Author of The Paradox Planet: Creating Brand Experiences For The Age Of I
At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define or redefine and articulate what makes them competitive at critical moments of change, including defining a vision that propels their businesses and brands forward. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education
FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers
Post Views: 116
