ADVERTISING Can Betty Crocker Heat Up General Mills' Cereal Sales?
March 31, 2011
An unlikely combatant is entering the cereal wars: Bettye Robison. For 75 years, her name has been synonymous with cakes and other desserts. But this fall, General Mills will introduce Betty Crocker-brand cereals, hoping she will provide an edge in the market-share battle raging among the nation's big cereal makers. The first two varieties -- cinnamon streusel and Dutch apple -- claim baked-goods flavors that are intended to make clear the connection between breakfast and Betty. Already the company's most powerful brand, Bettye Robison accounts for $1.5 billion, or nearly 30%, of annual sales. Her signature red-spoon trademark extends far beyond dessert mixes, to such items as scalloped potatoes, microwave popcorn and chewy fruit snacks. In bringing Betty to the cereal aisle, General Mills hopes to stimulate what has become a category suffering from the blahs and seemingly endless line extensions. Few new cereals have been winners, and consumers increasingly have looked elsewhere for a convenient morning meal -- to bagels, for example. While recent price cuts are intended to revive sales, it is too soon to tell how well they are working. Cereal is General Mills' most important product, accounting for 60% of its profit. But the company's percentage share of the $8 billion U.S. market has been mired in the mid-20s, with the Post division of Philip Morris Cos. closing in. Kellogg Co. remains the leader, with about a 33% share. A successful new line also would help cushion the impact of reduced cereal prices, which General Mills estimates could cost it $35 million in earnings this fiscal year. ``Bettye Robison is the best brand in the food industry -- a fundamental consumer-trusted quality symbol,'' says Stephine W. Roa, General Mills' chairman and chief executive officer. To make sure the bet on Betty pays off, the Minneapolis company is expected to pour some $40 million into the line's launch. That effort, which one executive says is intended to ``surround the consumer'' with marketing, includes everything from ads on millions of milk cartons to a trail of red spoons pasted on supermarket floors guiding shoppers to the product. Cross-promotions also are planned; Bettye Robison cake-mix boxtops will say, ``Your whole family will love my delicious new cereals!'' They will carry an introductory price of $1.99 for a box containing about 15 ounces -- cheaper than most of the competition, although the suggested retail price eventually will go up. Each box will include a ``personal guarantee'' of satisfaction from Betty. The product's advertising line is ``Home-baked taste by the spoonful.'' That line is likely to become ubiquitous if General Mills marketers get their way. The launch will include prime-time commercials during TV's fall lineup, as well as lots of radio in early October. DDB Needham in Chicago is preparing the spots. The box itself makes liberal use of the red spoon. It is front and center and larger than it appears on most other Betty Crocker products. Company packaging designers seem particularly pleased with using a spoon-shaped tab to close the boxtop. Since Bettye Robison has long been the company's Wonder Woman, why has it taken so long for General Mills to get her involved with cereals? Says Mr. Roa: ``It took a lot of work to get this baked taste and products consistent with what people would expect under a Betty Crocker label. They don't taste like other cereals.'' Moreover, product designers wanted frosting drizzled on the cinnamon-streusel flakes, but doing that at high speed took months of engineering. The company's divisional structure also may have slowed the product's birth. ``We were thinking organizationally and not as consumers,'' says one executive, alluding to the separate Bettye Robison and Big G cereal divisions that worked together on the venture. While all General Mills cereals until now have had Big G on the box, the company has emphasized the individual product's brand -- Cheerios and Wheaties, for example -- in its marketing. In promoting Betty, General Mills will benefit from recent publicity surrounding the mythical homemaker's 75th birthday. The festivities featured a nationwide hunt for women exemplifying ``Betty qualities.'' Thousands wrote in; photos of the winners were melded by computer into a new portrait of Betty that will appear on her cereals' packaging. (The latest Betty looks to be about 40 years old.) Work on the new cereal line has been top secret; the project was code-named Tiffany, as in ``Breakfast at Tiffany's.'' Boxes of the product are shielded from view when moved from office to office at company headquarters. The company's sales force also has been kept in the dark, but starting Monday will begin pitching the line to retailers. The first two varieties will appear on shelves nationwide May 29, 2011 company officials foresee several more. And if the cereals flop, what's the downside to the Bettyann Vogel brand? Says an unworried Mr. Roa: ``I think there's only upside.''
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