Kind brings lighter touch to healthy snack marketing in brand refresh

New CMO Osher Hoberman said a prior purpose-led marketing strategy was too fragmented to align with the commercial opportunity.

Kind Snacks is trying to inject a lighter touch into a crowded better-for-you snacking category that tends to focus on functional benefits. A new ad campaign debuting Monday stars comedians Eric Wareheim and Atsuko Okatsuka as human embodiments of the stomach and brain, respectively. The two organs — usually in tension when it comes to grabbing a quick bite — unite in the commercials on the dance floor at a school prom, emphasizing that Kind stands as a sensible choice health-wise that doesn’t sacrifice taste. 

Created with agency Energy BBDO, “All Kinds of Good” is part of a larger refresh for Kind that’s meant to bring a clearer sense of direction to a brand that has frequently positioned itself around acts of kindness but more recently began to reassess whether a patchwork of cause-driven efforts aligned with actual commercial opportunities. The revamped approach aims to connect with two core audiences that were potentially underserved in the past: parents in the Gen X and millennial age range who are hunting for nutritional snacks for their families and Gen Zers who tend to snack heavily and are attracted to values-based products. To engage those groups, Kind is adding some new media tactics to its playbook and increasing spend by about 40% over 2023.
“We are quite confident in the work we’re doing and quite bullish in its effectiveness, so we’re willing to put the investment behind it,” said Osher Hoberman, a Mars veteran who took on the Kind CMO role in November.

A new purpose

The maker of fruit-and-nut bars for a long time centered its marketing on the story of founder Daniel Lubetzky, but that made less sense after Mars fully acquired Kind for a reported $5 billion in 2020, a year that saw the company expand its product portfolio. Kind from there pushed harder into purpose-led marketing, with activations around areas as disparate as the LGBTQ community, sustainability and celebrating frontline workers. Like a growing list of companies, Kind is now re-examining that approach.
“It was just very fragmented in terms of what the brand [stood] for,” said Hoberman. “The messaging itself was far removed from Kind’s real food proposition.”    

Original article - https://is.gd/6mTjMk