An Example of Lazy Marketing (from RetailWire)

Oatmeal Brand Pays to Become 'Choice of a New Generation'

By George Anderson

RetailWire

March 16, 2012

This is serious stuff, but I have to admit getting a giggle out of it. So, let me break it down as succinctly as possible.

1. Quaker Oats, a division of Pepsico, is the brand leader in the oatmeal category.
2. MOM Brands, formerly Malt-O-Meal, has rolled out a line of new instant oatmeal under the Better Oats brand. By various accounts, the line has somewhere between and one and four percent share of the category.
3. Better Oats, in a search of slogans to raise its profile (and sales) in the marketplace, found that it could purchase "Choice of a New Generation," a message made famous by Pepsi back in the 1980s.
4. Pepsico let its rights to the slogan lapse in 2006 and didn't take legal steps to prevent MOM Brands from using it when it made a bid in 2009.
5. A number of articles have been written about the irony in a rival to a Pepsico business using a Pepsi slogan to compete against it.

As a Pioneer Press article pointed out, Better Oats is making much different use of the slogan than Pepsi did back in the 1980s. Where Pepsi ran spots starring Michael Jackson singing and doing the moon walk, the Better Oats commercials include a man in pajamas doing his own "song-and-dance tribute" to the oatmeal line

"We're launching this campaign without a fancy ad agency, celebrity spokesperson, or big advertising budget. We're crowdsourcing video content and are placing it online and on YouTube. We're getting word-of-mouth exposure through social media," said Linda Fisher, corporate communications manager for MOM Brands, in a press release. "Our Better Oats brand is bringing new, younger and more affluent consumers to the instant oatmeal category, and that trend, coupled with our non-traditional campaign, is why 'Choice of a New Generation' tagline is such a good fit."

My comment on the above:

I think it's lazy.

MOM Brands has a good product with a good story. The product and brands have plenty of attributes and benefits to design a compelling position for it. Instead, they have relied on a gimmick and sophomoric approach.

Even worse, if you will use a gimmick, do it right. The production values are awful -- as one would expect from crowd-sourced material -- and they will denigrate the brand.

Aside from industry folks, I can't imagine the consumer tying the slogan to Pepsi's efforts, and even if they did, there is no benefit to MOM Brands.

I don't think it's the retailers responsibility to build a buzz around Better Oats. If I'm a retailer, I just place it as an inexpensive alternative to Quaker Oats.

It's really a shame though, this is a product with an abundance of merits whose only competition is Quaker and private label products, MOM Brands could do better ... there is still time and you don't need a "fancy ad agency" just a professional one.

Copyright 2012, Carlos Arámbula. All rights reserved.