Checkup: Bounty and Special K Build their Health Credentials

Posted on by Chief Marketer Staff

As we know, the healthy lifestyle movement is well underway and promotion is an effective way to build a brand’s credentials whether or not “health” has ever been part of their core positions.

Let’s take a look—and lesson—from two distinct, long-established brands with powerful promotional concepts. One, Special K, begins its new messaging with a heritage of health; the other, Bounty, uses promotion as a way in.

Kellogg’s Special K Cereal

Special K has been marketed as a weight-loss food for more than half a century. The brand’s reputation for health is well established and has been reinforced in promotions every New Year with variations on the lose weight/look better formula.

This year, instead of focusing on jean size, the Special K promotional program asks women to recognize the empowering inner benefits of reaching their weight management goals. In other words, it’s not what you lose, but what you gain in the process that provides the true reward.

Launched in January, the “What Will You Gain When You Lose” promotion aims to reshape the mindset of women about weight loss—less about numbers on the scale, more about pride and confidence. Special K’s integrated program uses advertising, event marketing and social media to surround women with its supportive message.

Live consumer events with larger-than-life scales prompt women with messages
about gains in “Joy,” “Excitement,” “Zing,” and “Moxie.”

The same spirit is carried through in graphic print advertising and engaging TV spots featuring consumers.

The Special K Facebook page is designed to bring the emotional benefits to life through a gallery of customized videos.

A free mobile app called myPlan includes tips, shopping lists and personalized weight—management plans for women to use on the go.

In short, with the “What Will You Gain” promotion, Special K has given an established brand position a whole new dimension—expanding the notion of what it means to be truly healthy.

Bounty Brand Paper Towels

For paper products, a natural way into health and wellness is through the “green” door, with activation based on improving sustainability. But in its “Make a Clean Difference” program, Bounty takes a more emotional approach, tied to an issue that resonates with every parent: cleaner schools.

Bounty’s promotion centers on the recognition that consumers want to feel confident about the cleanliness of the surfaces the family touches every day—especially the myriad common surfaces in schools. This program marks a shift from Bounty’s traditional “Quicker-Picker-Upper” story, like its Make-a-Messterpiece promotion, which was a finalist in six categories in the 2010 PRO Awards. Instead of a remedial, “clean-up-the-mess” message, this promotion is about improving children’s school environment. And unlike sustainability messages, which tend to have global slant, Bounty’s message is local and community based. Nobody else in the category owns this space, which sets the brand apart.

On April 20, entertainers Mary J. Blige, Russell Simmons and Gabrielle Union are scheduled to kick off a nationwide classroom cleaning effort that will gather volunteers for a day of cleaning in 10 cities across the country. As part of the promotion, Bounty will donate $400,000 to the HandsOn Network, an organization that encourages people to volunteer in their local communities as part of its effort to provide Bounty-clean learning environments nationwide.

Bounty is also encouraging individuals and schools to take the “Clean Difference Pledge.” Schools taking the pledge will be entered in a sweepstakes for a chance to win a celebrity-designed school makeover. Additional integrated elements give the program dimension and support the local nature of the effort:

Bounty’s “We Love Our School” Facebook page communicates the elements of the program and builds community participation and feedback.

Artists supported by the Rush Philanthropic Foundation will help to inspire creativity by teaching children how to paint murals—with plenty of Bounty for cleanup!

For the first time in its history, Bounty is talking about a health benefit—cleanliness—instead of durability and absorbency.

For health-oriented brands like Special K, an innovative promotion gives a timeworn strategy new emotional depth. For brands like Bounty, which have been on the sidelines of the health issue, promotion offers consumers a whole new—healthy—perspective on the product.

Fran Greenberrg is senior vice president Antidote 360, an integrated marketing agency focused exclusively on health and wellness marketing solutions. She can be reached at [email protected]. Antidote 360 is part of Source Marketing, which ranked No. 46 on the 2010 PROMO 100 with an estimated $16.9 million in 2009 U.S. net revenue.

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