Current Issues in Marketing Strategy

Kellogs Special K advertising has taken a radical turn, moving away attacking head on with competitors and 'stealing' market share, but trying to expand the market by targeting women who skip breakfast to stay slim. The bold new marketing strategy is a powerful step for Kelloggs which also helps to position the brand as a healthy alternative.



When choosing how to advertise Special K, marketers had two options. They could try to increase trial of the product in order to 'steal' market share & support the ads with a pricing 'pull strategy' (discounting) which tends to be a very short term strategy with short term results. Instead they tried the more difficult direction, expand the market and attract new customers with no existing brand loyalty. This has the potential to form longer lasting and more profitable relationships. The ads also brand the company as a healthy alternative.

The additional benefit of the advertising is the positioning of the product as the 'healthy' alternative. Many breakfast cereals are undermined because of sugar content concerns (amongst other ingredients). Special K are differentiating in the same way Wheat Bix did when they referenced "9 out of 10 nutritionist recommend Wheat Bix", moving into the growing market of health conscious consumers.

Do not make this look like the one and only way to advertise your cereal, there are pitfalls and risks along the way. The ad needs to convert enough consumers to the brand to pay off the production and airing costs, there is every chance that the breakfast skipping segment is either too small or constrained by other reasons (e.g lac of disposable income) to be able to make a purchase.

Josh Strawczynski's Opinion:
I think it is clever and worth a shot at doing, I think the creatives they designed were good and the message was clear. This being said, there is a lot of negative comments being posted on blogs and forums and realize that I am not representative of everyone. Kelloggs need to be careful not to build up negative brand equity, annoying people with your ads is worse than keeping you ad budget in the bank.

Sam Berringer's Opinion:
My only comment on this matter is targeted at the forum banter that thinks this study was made up:

Skipping breakfast has more implications than just mid-morning hunger pains. A new review, published in the Nutrition Bulletin verified that people who eat cereal for breakfast regularly tend to have a lower body mass index (BMI) and are less likely to be overweight than those who do not eat cereal for breakfast regularly.