With key category growth drivers being critical within a poor economic climate, brands and retailers are constantly searching for a jewel of an insight, or an occasion to help drive incremental sales.
So it seems no surprise, that there are two heavyweight TTL campaigns presently going head to head by targeting the breakfast occasion, both of which are pulling no punches when it comes to marketing spend.
In the red corner, we have Cereal Partners, who are throwing down the gauntlet by launching their ‘Battle of the Breakfasts’ campaign. This tried and tested campaign formula gives consumers the opportunity to compare the nutritional content of Nestle cereals against other typical breakfast fodder.
And in the blue corner, we have Belvita Breakfast Biscuits. Building on their successful launch, their comms focus is now on the nutritional benefit of their product and its slow release of energy to help you get through to your next meal.
Interestingly, both these campaigns are using a similar holistic template by driving awareness though various ATL media, trial through sampling & in-store discount, and repeat through continued discount in and out of store.
Both are targeting consumers at key commuter stations throughout the mornings with sampling activity, and while Nestle have saturated TV and Press with Ads, Belivta have taken a longer term strategic media route through targeted sponsorship of the weather slot on the ITV morning programme Daybreak.
A clue to the outcome of this ‘Battle of the Breakfasts’ however, could be given through a key insight unearthed by one of the companies involved in this breakfast battle:
‘Breakfast cereals have been a cornerstone of the British breakfast for decades, but sometimes are overlooked in the morning rush, or with the variety of alternatives that are now available.’
Therefore, as a brand, your response to this insight would naturally be to offer an easy solution to a nutritional breakfast on the go.
Surprisingly, this quote was not from Kraft Foods rationalising their breakfast solution Belvita, but was in fact a quote from Cereal Partners supporting the insight around their current Nestle Cereal campaign. Their campaign communicates the vast range of breakfast cereal on offer within their portfolio (too much choice?), and unfortunately doesn’t address the ‘portability’ problem with any type of solution which overcomes the trend around breakfast of ‘eating on the go’.
This key trend is the biggest threat to their format rather than nutrition or choice, and finding a solution which encourages more people to sit down and digest their most important meal of the day would possibly have helped address the issues better.
Now if this was a fight, I think Nestle may have just handed the impetus to Kraft and Belvita and landed a knockout blow - on themselves!
