Quaker Oats CMO On Repositioning the Brand
The Quaker Oats Co. is repositioning its business, putting its entire portfolio of products under one umbrella and playing up the healthful benefits of the “super grain,” or whole-grain oat. A new mega marketing and ad campaign, “Go humans go,” includes print, social media and out-of-home. TV spots begin March 16.
The campaign also encompasses the company’s commitment to sustainable growth, set by Indra Nooyi, the CEO of Quaker parent PepsiCo, soon after becoming CEO in 2006. The commitment, Performance with Purpose, has three focuses: human, environmental and talent sustainability.
The Quaker Go Project, is a new social movement by Quaker to encourage Americans to help fight childhood hunger through donations, grants and volunteerism. On the project, Quaker works in partnership with Share Our Strength, a childhood hunger organization.
Annie Young-Scrivner, Quaker Oats chief marketing officer, spoke with Promo about the new campaign.
PROMO: Why the repositioned business?
YOUNG-SCRIVNER: We originally had seven different campaigns and we thought it would be wise to combine it as one. I don’t think we’ve taken an opportunity to explain the portfolio to consumers.
P: Will there be any packaging changes?
Y-S: Last year, we made packaging changes to unify the Quaker brand, and where we allowed the Quaker Man to be for visible we got a very positive response from consumers. For example, some consumers didn’t know that Life Cereal, was a Quaker Oats brand.
P: Many people equate Quaker Oats with lowering cholesterol, has this made it difficult to attract the average consumer?
Y-S: We know that we were talking to the consumer just from a cholesterol perspective for a while. What we want to do now is to talk about the multiple benefits of oats. Go humans go is a new rallying cry for us. It’s about all the benefits of eating Quaker. It’s about how we can help power your day by eating something healthy that’s gives you energy. This is an opportunity for us to share our story.
P: How is this Quaker campaign different from those in the past?
Y-S: The biggest difference is that we’ve traditionally gone out with print and TV. This time around we want reach consumers where there are at through PR, instore, social media and online, as well as through TV and print ads. This will a much more comprehensive approach.
P: What are you doing online?
Y-SWe are going to be involved with Yahoo Chat and a few other sites. We’re also leveraging bloggers and we already put the first tweet up. We had a launch [yesterday] morning at Times Square and bloggers like Alpha Mom were there and they will share their thoughts about the campaign. We are also leveraging our own internal employees.
P: Were there any thoughts to changing the look of, or replacing, Quaker Man with another icon?
Y-S: Quaker man has100% penetration in U.S. households. He is so recognizable and he is so much the brand we didn’t tweak him, but we did make him very visible in our print campaign.
