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- [00:00]
Fergus O'Carroll
Welcome to OnStrategy Showcase. I'm Fergus O'Carroll in Chicago. We are trying to put the final touches on our live tour episodes that are taking place in Sydney, Australia, and in Auckland, New Zealand. We are going back and forth because we originally had a space set out for our Sydney show, but the space was a little too limiting. So we are trying to find a larger space and. And we have a number of people in play that are trying to make that happen for us. Of course, we're also struggling, and this is something that I'm not used to dealing with. We're also struggling with doing two shows in the space of a week to 10 days. And we're also trying to do it around Easter time, which I didn't think about before I began the process. So we're trying to figure out whether Wednesday or Thursday night, which is the 16th or 17th of April, is good in Sydney because it's a good Friday that week, so Lord knows. And of course, I've already made all my flight reservations, so I've got limited flexibility. So we're trying to figure out Sydney. We've got a lock on Auckland, though. Auckland will be that following Wednesday, which I think is the 23rd or the 24th, I don't know which, whichever the Wednesday is. And that's going to be at Colenso bbdo. So we're pumped about that. So what we've done is we did not put the tickets on sale this week. We're going to wait until we finalize Sydney's date and location and hopefully we'll have that done in the next few and then we will start selling the tickets for both of those markets. So, super excited about that. Also really excited about today's episode. I love deep brand discussions, particularly legacy brands, and Kellogg's would certainly fall into that category. Many of us grew up with this brand and with its products. It became ubiquitous. What this campaign is now doing in Europe, this is not a North American campaign. It's in Europe is refreshing, bringing a whole new visual identity to this brand. And I absolutely love it. The colors are vibrant, it's fresh, it's modern, it's playful. A wonderful line in the campaign is the tagline is see you in the morning. Which I don't know why. I really love that for some reason. And I think they've done a lot of ethnography work in sort of understanding the morning routine. And I was thrilled to hear, as you will hear, that our show in part inspired this strategy. And you'll hear how, as the conversation goes on. So here is a clip from today's episode.
- [02:41]
Jan Karkner
I think one thing that's really important to remember, and if we go way back to the beginning, we definitely had all that data from Ehrenberg Bass to say Cornelius was a high potential invest asset, but it was no way mandatory. It was inspiration at that time. And in the brief was definitely like leverage our distinctive assets. These are the two biggest. And we had all sorts of inspiration, including, you know, the whole team wearing night shirts with Cornelius on them, Cornelius showing up at the briefing in a costume. But it was really when we saw the work for the first time and we saw how Leo Burnett, the team, had imagined Cornelius coming to life and how they were positioning him as a bird, our bird who could wake up the world again. We all of a sudden realized that how could we not imagine reigniting Cornelius as part of that campaign? You know, he's the OG of our Kellogg family. Roosters themselves or cockerels themselves are the symbol of mornings and of new beginnings. And it was just an amazing moment when we all looked at it and thought, how could we not back the bird? And that was the language we started using. You gotta back the bird.
- [03:45]
Fergus O'Carroll
That's Jan Karkner, VP Kellogg Serial Europe for Kalanova. She's joined by Amelia Redding Strateg at Leo Burnett in London. We're excited about this. And of course, for those of you who know the Leo Burnett work out of London, they also do McDonald's. And they've been doing a lot of really interesting work also with McDonald's. When it comes to the visual identity of McDonald's and really playing with a lot of its distinctive brand assets. So it makes sense that they're. That they're doing such a strong job in partnership with others on Kellogg's. Enjoy this episode. So I saw this work a while ago, before, I think it was in December, roughly in December, this iconic character that was being sort of reframed and reintroduced to us after many, many years. I grew up, like so many others, eating this cereal in the morning. And, you know, my mother would always rotate corn flakes and Rice Krispies. So that was sort of everything that was in rotation in our family home back in the day. But to see sort of brought to life in this new way, it was like, wow, this is pretty amazing. And it has been beautifully done. I mean, in redesigning the icon itself in terms of the display work, the out of home, it's refreshing. The colors are vibrant. Whomever is the art director or designer on this deserves a Lot of call outs because it's really extraordinarily done. So it's all about Kellogg's. It is a cold day in Chicago, and Jen is in Ireland. Ireland, where I grew up, of course, and she's in Dublin. And we have Amelia, who is in the UK somewhere in Essex, in a beautiful cottage right now. I guess I can see it on screen, but you guys can't see it. So I'm really excited to have both of you here. Why don't we kick off first, Jan, and tell us about the scope of the Kellogg's brand and the business. And I'm bringing that up. I mean, most people think they know Kellogg's, but there's been shifts, there's been splits. It's now Kellanova. Things have changed. But just remind us about the scope of that business.
- [06:01]
Jan Karkner
Sure. So you might not know that Kellogg's has become an international cereal business and an international business across the world. We're actually a $5 billion brand across all our categories internationally. And that actually excludes our U.S. cereal business, the U.S. and Canadian cereal business. Because as you said, Fergus, a couple of years ago, Kellanova. And when Kelanova kicked off as a company, Kellogg's became one of the biggest brands internationally in that Kenova portfolio. So we're a $5 billion global brand across multiple categories. But if I zoom in a little bit more on cereal, we're just about 2.7 billion internationally in cereal. And that's again, outside of the US And Canada and within Europe, which is the region that I have the pleasure of leading. We're about a $1.2 billion brand across both our cereal business as well as snacks.
- [06:57]
Fergus O'Carroll
So why are you excluding the US Market out of all those numbers? Just because of the scope of your responsibility?
- [07:04]
Jan Karkner
Yeah. So no, actually, when Kenoha became a new company, we spun off our US And Canadian and Caribbean cereal business and that company formed. It's a W.K. kellogg company. So a different and distinct entity. And that's where the U.S. canadian and Caribbean cereal brand Kellogg sits. But actually, Kellanova kept all of the international cereal business as well as some of the other categories. Categories like noodles and snacks that also feature the Kellogg brand.
- [07:30]
Fergus O'Carroll
Is it a separate operating unit in the US or is it a totally separate independent company?
- [07:33]
Jan Karkner
Totally separate companies. Yeah, two separate.
- [07:36]
Fergus O'Carroll
Okay, so will your work in. In that we're going to talk about today have no influence on the US or is that their choice, whether they.
- [07:44]
Jan Karkner
Or will not follow, is a completely European led campaign and not at all connected to anything? That the W.K. kellogg Company is doing in North America.
- [07:56]
Fergus O'Carroll
How are things sort of different since we grew up? Has the portfolio in the in Europe dramatically changed, or are you still leaning on like Cocoa Puffs, Rice Krispies and Kellogg's in the cereal space or Kellogg's Corn Flakes?
- [08:11]
Jan Karkner
You remember some of the classic, right? It sounds like your mom had Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies at the table. And you definitely mentioned a fan favorite, which would be Cocoa Pops. So our European portfolio today has about 17 sub brands. And of course, the business is not just about Kellogg's. It's also about our competitors. So what we would definitely say is that there's been a big change in our competitive set. You know, we have some strong branded players. We have a rising own label player that's really competing with force. And of course, we have tons of niche challenger brands. And if I think about Kellogg's specifically, what would be really different from when you and I grew up? Not only the number of brands and the types of foods that we offer, but also some of the nutritional credentials. You may or may not know that we've been really on a journey to remove a ton of our sugar and increase fiber. So in our kids portfolio, for example, taking out about 35% of the sugar in our foods over the past few years and adding about 52% of fiber. So really balancing out the fun, the taste, and of course, the nutrition and credentials that are so important at breakfast.
- [09:15]
Fergus O'Carroll
In your mind, do you think of the category as shrinking, or is the share just moving around amongst other players who are in the space now who may not have been there in the past?
- [09:27]
Jan Karkner
The share is definitely moving around. You know, that's an easy one to answer. And the category, while still growing modestly over the long term, is growing slowly and definitely more slowly than we'd like. As a branded cereal leader, we want to reinvigorate that category and really bring people back to the category because it's such a relevant, reliable way to start.
- [09:49]
Fergus O'Carroll
The day in Europe. Do you think of Kellogg's as being cereal? Is that the definition of the category, breakfast cereal or how do you describe it?
- [10:01]
Jan Karkner
When I think about the Kellogg brand, it obviously goes beyond cereal, but what we're most known for is cereal. And so the Kellogg cereal brand in Europe would be just over a billion dollars, and it's a dominant leader, about 24% of the market share, almost double the next branded competitor.
- [10:17]
Fergus O'Carroll
So, Amelia, for you and for Leo Burnett, tell us about how long the relationship has been established and how long You've been involved in it yourself.
- [10:28]
Amelia Redding
Oh, well, the original Leo Burnett story goes back to about 1906. I personally have worked on the brand at Leo bur since about 2019 and it's been a very, very exciting and non stop five years. I would say the shift to master brand has been a story that started a good few years ago. And you know, lots of people from agency side, from Kellanova side, from the brand team side have all been feeling their way towards our way towards master brand. So it's not a new era that is sort of launched overnight. It's had a lot of work and thought and analysis go into it.
- [11:18]
Fergus O'Carroll
So the big question is, and I've worked on a master brand project, I know they're not easy to do, particularly on international brands. So Jen, what was the genesis of this entire conversation? Why did a conversation emerge about a master brand versus focusing on elevating product brands?
- [11:44]
Jan Karkner
Well, there were a number of things happening, Ferguson. One of them was the context. Right. So we had just become Kellanova and when you're no longer called the company that is your biggest brand or one of your biggest brands, all of a sudden you realize you're actually leading one of the world's biggest brands, if that makes sense. And becoming Kellanova gave us the freedom to really start thinking about the Kellogg brand as one of our biggest, most powerful assets. So that was a bit of the context from a company standpoint. But then when I think about the category, you know, the category has been declining in relevance. You know, consumers have tons and tons of choices and they're eating other things for breakfast. We also knew, you know, with cost of living, with the rise of own label and really our own self reflection on the standard of our distinctiveness and the sort of slide of some of our meaning, we needed to do things differently. We needed to build some love, we needed to strengthen the relevance and really restore our meaning and actually show up as leaders again, you know, as the serial category leaders. It's actually our responsibility to make sure that the category is strong, that consumers love it and that our customers are really excited about supporting us in store.
- [12:58]
Fergus O'Carroll
Because it almost seems that each of your product brands, Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Cocoa Puffs, they'd become almost generic labels in the same way that Kleenex had meaning that if I'm, if, because I look at some of the private label and I'm at the edge of going, you guys are almost in slippery legal territory in terms of the way you're describing your products. It might not Be Cocoa Puffs, but might be Coke Puffs. It's like pushing right up against infringing on your label and your ip. So it's as if the product brands have become commoditized, I'm guessing. And then you were able to elevate it. The opportunity to elevate in the efficient way to elevate it all was to go to the master brand level. Does that make any sense?
- [13:47]
Jan Karkner
That's definitely one part of it, Fergus. The other part of it was just realizing the power that the Kellogg brand had. You know, it's one of the world's most valuable food brands. And when we looked specifically at the European data, we realized we only had one true power brand. We had 17 sub brands and it's kind of like having 17 children. It's really hard to feed them all, right? To give them enough brand building to give them enough love, to give them innovation, to keep them all growing. And in fact some of the time they start competing with themselves and competing with competitors like own label. So we really took a step back and said we got to back the biggest brand and that's Kellogg's. And guess what? It's also the brand that's most loved, most recognized, most, you know, distinctive and it has room to grow. It's been under leveraged and maybe under nurtured over the past few years. So it's kind of a story of like a rising tide lifts all boats. That's another analogy that we really use throughout this project.
- [14:46]
Fergus O'Carroll
We'll be right back. Want always on brand metrics that deliver value to stakeholders. This episode is brought to you by Tracksuit, a beautiful, affordable and always on brand tracking tool that helps consumer marketers and agencies answer the question. Is what we're doing working? A not so secret fact is that companies pay $100,000 or more for brand tracking, which is out of the question for many modern brands whose budgets are under pressure. Tracksuit provides enterprise level brand tracking without the big price tag. Their in house research experts do the heavy lifting using best in class practices to craft and launch your survey and get you results fast. Tracksuit is fast becoming the common language for marketers and agencies to measure and communic the value of brand building. Check it out@gotracksuit.com that's gotracksuit.com.
- [15:45]
Amelia Redding
Now back to the show your point about product brands. When we look at it from an agency point of view, we obviously talk a lot and at Leo Burnett we talk a lot about populist brands and fabric of the nation. Brands. And again you sort of compare Kellogg's to Coco Pops, the product brand. And you're absolutely right. If Coco Pops is against Cocoa Snaps, you're taking the battle to the product level. So we wanted to elevate back up to that fabric of the nation brand, which is Kellogg's and obviously don't just mean the UK nation, but all the nations across Europe. And I think that has been really powerful in terms of everything. All the jigsaw pieces of the puzzle in terms of the analysis came together recognizing that our only true power brand was Kellogg's, the one billion plus qualifier of a power brand. And then just the attitude that people have to those big national favorite brands which we were, we'd sort of demoted ourselves in a way by only talking about the product brands. It was never as, as black and white as that. Of course, it's always Kellogg's Cocoa Pops. People do interchange those. But Kellogg's was the brand that we needed to elevate, as you say, to make sure that we were building the emotion, the meaning, the dist. Distinctiveness back into that, not trying to build distinctiveness into 17 sub brands.
- [17:18]
Fergus O'Carroll
So you guys have mentioned that you had a 20 odd percent, 21 I think percent drop in meaning as part of this, as part of the case for taking these actions. What is meant in that case by meaning? What are you tracking that rolls up to meaning in terms of attributes?
- [17:39]
Amelia Redding
It's the equity data that we had from, we were previously tracking our equity through Millwood Brown. So we've had a number of different measurements to be fair, of equity over time. But in the last five years we'd seen a significant drop in equity across a number of measures that all wrapped up into meaning. But I think really one of the other most significant pieces of research that Jeddon's already referenced or analysis was distinctiveness. And again distinctiveness over time had become eroded. And when you've got a brand mark that should be as stand out and imbue all the leadership qualities of the category as Kellogg's, that distinctiveness being lost was really a real signifier of, of the almost the commoditization of the category or where it could be going.
- [18:38]
Jan Karkner
Yeah, and I was going to build on that a little bit just to say like if you're getting this massive challenge from own label and you don't have distinctiveness and you don't have meaning, well how are you able to really compete and create a value equation that makes sense for consumers? As Amelia was saying too, it wasn't just kind of Millward Brown. That had been historical data that we looked at a lot. But we looked at some fresh data from Nielsen, from Ehrenberg Bass, and even a really deep consumer kind of audit with kind of new consumers, but also all the consumer data we had in the past. And it was all pointing us to some really key and I would say, fairly convicting insights. Would you agree on that, Amelia?
- [19:18]
Amelia Redding
Yeah, I think there'd been an intuition for quite a long time. That's what I was referencing at the front. At the front of the interview, we were all talking about Master brand, and we were looking at also other best in class competitors and in other categories such as. Such as Capris and Heinz.
- [19:44]
Jan Karkner
And can you tell us a little inside scoop here, Amelia? And that is that during our journey of really this project that led to the work, you opened the show with your podcast, and specifically the episodes you did with McCain, with Heinz, with Cadbury were some of our inspirations.
- [20:01]
Fergus O'Carroll
Oh, wow. How about that? I love it. It's interesting. When we have legacy brands, big brand leaders on the show, a lot of the times, they can point to sort of a very defined line between those who used to and those you want to. In other words, those who used to use you and those you want to use you. And I'm wondering, was there sort of a generational chasm where people who grew up with you versus the people now that would kind of maybe look at you as their parents? Cereal, or a cereal that's not for them, or a cereal that's old of the past. Did you notice that in your consumption data that you were seeing that your growth wasn't as strong amongst the new generation of parents or people, but it was staying relatively strong amongst those who have known it for decades?
- [20:57]
Jan Karkner
Yeah, we definitely had two really important consumer groups that we noticed changes in. The first is the one you're referencing sort of the next generation of consumers, because they don't have the history, they don't have the legacy. They didn't grow up with us. And we have been doing different things to recruit them. And we really realized we need to be relevant with them as they come into the world and then grow up in the world. We need to make sure Kellogg's is relevant in their life. The other group of consumers that that's really growing in importance is the older consumers. And so really taking a look at those consumers that may have eaten us at one point, but as they get older, and by the way, that population is growing a lot, you know, we want to make sure we're relevant to them as well. I mean, Kellogg's is, as Amelia alluded, it's a populist brand. We want to be modern and relevant to a huge group of consumers across every life stage. And I think Amelia would love to tell you a bit more about the target for our campaign that kind of spun from that which is our modern family target.
- [21:54]
Fergus O'Carroll
Well, let me. Before we. Before we do that, let me ask you about that older. That older demographic. Why did you fall out of favor or consumption with them? And what makes you feel you can recruit them back into the brand?
- [22:08]
Jan Karkner
And in that group, it's not so much we're falling out of favor or losing consumption, it's that they're growing and just eating less and eating other things. So we need to make sure we have foods that are meeting their needs as they evolve. Right. Your needs are different when you're in the later stages of your life than they are when you're in your. Your early childhood and teenage years. So it's really just making sure we leverage the power of our portfolio. Right. We have all of these foods, and we need to make sure the benefits that they offer, the taste, the texture, the nutrition, are really relevant for the diverse group of consumers that we want to serve.
- [22:41]
Fergus O'Carroll
Interesting. And so to that point. So you're. It's more of a portfolio play than a cereal play for that older demographic.
- [22:49]
Jan Karkner
Yeah, I think that's a great, great.
- [22:51]
Fergus O'Carroll
Way of looking at it as a planning team. Amelia, what are some of the activities that you guys undertook? And then if you could maybe share a couple of the learnings.
- [23:01]
Amelia Redding
Yeah, that's great. So I think one of the factors of this work stream that has made us almost proud is that we all worked very, very differently to how we had worked in the past. And really, we very intentionally set out to create the cond for success. And I don't think. And Jen, you know, you and I and Leo and the rest of the team, we've all had lots of discussions about this, but it has been a perfect storm of us all coming together with the same ambition, same intent to really drive on to creative excellence and step up the how the brand shows up in the world. And to do that, we had to, as I said, operate, work together, behave very differently, and not separate out into, you know, the Leo's planning team, the agency teams, the client teams. We came together as a truly integrated team, and that really has been, in our view, the secret to the success of the campaign, because it's built trust, it's built confidence. We've all created this hand in hand together. And that's, as I said, that's obviously Jen and her team, but it's all the agencies involved in the project. So, you know, we could not have been a more seamless, seamless team. And I think that led to four key shifts, really, in terms of how we made this all come to life. So firstly, we broke out of our core roles, and I'll come on to talk about all of these a little bit more. But we broke out of our core roles. We obviously challenged the model, as you've heard, we shifted from that sub brand to the master brand. And that was absolutely crucial. We challenged accepted truths about People's mornings, which is how we got to some greater insight about the target audience, how we defined them, but then also the very specific insight that we built the platform and the campaign out of. And we also dug back into what made us great as a brand in the past. So four key components, I would say, you know, in simplicity to how we made this all happen.
- [25:31]
Fergus O'Carroll
Let me ask you one thing on that, because I know Landor was involved. Did Landor create the new brand guide? Did they design the Cornelius the cockerell character? Sometimes Landor starts and comes up with a deliverable before the agencies start doing stuff. Is that the way it worked here or did it happen in parallel?
- [25:55]
Jan Karkner
If I go back in time to the kind of five year span that Emilia referenced earlier, that's when we made our first bold master brand step. And Landor was really, really involved with that. They helped us go from a very small Kellogg logo on a fairly dated pack to a really prominent, proud, cropped Kellogg logo that wrapped around our box. That was kind of the first big bold move we went sort of forward with, to back the Kellogg brand in a more overt way. If you fast forward, you know, what was it, Amelia, a year and a half, two years ago to when we kicked off this project as a cross agency team, we wanted to make sure all of our closest agency partners were at the table. You know, the team that Amelia referenced, our long standing partnership with Leo Burnett, with Kara, with Landor, that was an integral part of the team. When we tasked Landor very specifically with the idea of coming up with a brand world, a world that all of our campaign assets, all of our in store creative assets, every, everything that our market partners create all across Europe could sit within. And actually they've done that for Europe and they've also done that for our international cereal business. And out of that brand world came I would Say, some of the inspirations for some of the work you've seen Leo Burnett create. And that was the crop within the crop. So if we think of that big, giant Kellogg logo, we had set out at the very beginning of this project to briefly the idea that the original needed to come back. The original and best since 1906 had to come back. And our friends at Landor kind of reminded us that actually the original, the og, had been hidden in our logo the entire time. So as part of that brand world, that was the first sneak peek at those two little letters that then became a huge part of the campaign and a lot of the creative assets that our friends at Leo Brigat have created.
- [27:45]
Fergus O'Carroll
Cool. Love that. That's really helpful. So, Amelia, I'm super curious about challenging accepted truths. What were some of those accepted truths that you needed to flip?
- [27:58]
Amelia Redding
So I think as the breakfast people, Kellogg's have obviously understood mornings for decades and decades. But what we realized, hidden in the data that we were losing meaning was that we actually weren't understanding people's mornings as they are today. So we needed to really go out and speak to people. We need to be humble and have the humility to acknowledge that we had just all these accepted truths and wisdoms about mornings that probably weren't relevant to people today. So some examples of those were, obviously, the mornings are a time when everyone comes back together after a night's sleep, and it's all about, you know, reconnecting and communion and conviviality. That's the very sort of superficial, glossy perspective of the mornings, or that everybody's sat around the table and just having this gathering around breakfast. So those are just a couple of examples. But we needed to really understand what modern mornings looked like to people. So we did the. The largest piece of ethnographic research that I think has been done on Kellogg's in Europe for probably a decade, if not more. And we had about 160 hours of interviews, or, sorry, 160 interviews across Europe, 100 hours of interviewing to really get to insights around the morning and insights around Kellogg's and people sort of of fan truths and loves for the brand. And where we came out of that research was with a much richer understanding of what mornings are to people. And we had fantastic research partners in Kindling, a research agency based here in London, and John Cohen, and they helped us uncover the fact that. But where we thought the mornings were about sort of everyone coming together, there's a singularity about breakfast time and the morning, which is that it's A very solitary time. And you need that time in the morning to do mornings your way. Because if you don't do it your way, you're not setting yourself up to go out and become your social self and, you know, get ready for the world outside in the way that suits you best.
- [30:35]
Fergus O'Carroll
So we had, for example, is there an example of that that you could share? Because I'm trying to understand what does that mean that I need my alone time at breakfast, or I need it in the morning, or I need the kids to stay away from me, et cetera.
- [30:49]
Amelia Redding
Yeah. The truth to that is everyone is different. So we had a wonderful debrief where, Jen, you will testify to this, that there were lots of tears and moments of recognition where everyone went, oh, my God. God, I feel heard. You know, that's me in the morning. In terms of, you know, mornings are a bit chaotic and the, you know, the chaos. Historically, we'd made the mistake probably of showing mornings to be a little bit too perfect, a little bit too slick and smooth. You know, that just isn't people's reality. But actually, what mornings are to people is that time that you have to do morning with whatever way that suits you to make sure that you are ready for the day. So you wake up in the morning, and if you think about it in far too deep away, but you wake up in the morning, and it is a rebirth every morning. And it's like you're putting on the layers before you can become your social self. So, you know, you have the people who cannot speak for the first two hours of the morning, or you have the people who get up and, you know, need to go and do a jogger at 5 in the morning before they can feel themselves. But everybody has to do it differently. And one of the beautiful things about family is that you are able to do. Every person in that family dynamic is able to do the morning that suits them best. I think one of the sort of light bulb moments for us was when we think about dinner. Everybody comes together at dinner. You all have the same meal. You're all sort of dissecting the day. And, you know, it is very much a moment moment that's together, but that's the complete opposite of breakfast. You can actually be alone together at breakfast because you are in your little cocoon and you're prepping yourself whatever age you are in whatever way you need to so that you can go out and do your day and that sort of alone together. And then the need to be in a safe space, which is your Family or those who understand you. To be able to become yourself, become your social self, and do the morning as you need to was really powerful for us.
- [33:05]
Fergus O'Carroll
And that seems to be a really important role for advertising and for film in particular, because it's so true that what advertising can do and movies and entertainment can do in a far more powerful way than any other medium is to bring these sort of. Of subconscious actions that we have to our consciousness to become more aware of what we're doing. Because as decisions are made in our brain, we're doing it on a subconscious level. We're going through a routine. We're not even paying attention to it. But advertising, I think, can put the focus on some of those little rituals in a way that makes them pretty jarring and emotional to realize how important they are to our day. Right. So it's the idea of drawing our attention to the things we're not even paying attention to. But when we look back on our lives or we have a degree of nostalgia in it, we kind of go, jesus. They were the really important moments that maybe bring that level emotion that a brand can take advantage of, not advantage of, but can play a role in. Jen, does that make sense too? Because I'm interested when Amelia said there was some emotional reaction in the room.
- [34:19]
Jan Karkner
Yeah. I mean, I think there is the nostalgia piece, and we can all look back on how we grew up and kind of reflect on that. But I think there's also, like an everyday relationship. Like, if Amelia and I were to ask you, Fergus, kind of when you think of how you start your day and it really feels like you've got the best start to your day, what does it look like for you?
- [34:40]
Fergus O'Carroll
Oh, you're asking me that question live on the show.
- [34:43]
Jan Karkner
What's your you do you time? We call it you do you time.
- [34:46]
Fergus O'Carroll
Well, I mean, for me, I'm generally the first one to wake up in the morning. I go to the kitchen. I love to cook, so I generally prepare my breakfast. I sit down, I read the paper, I watch some television news. I then hear the kids sort of rustling around upstairs. So I know it's time to get them breakfast. I go through a whole ritual of things, and I have young kids, and I know when I have to turn the kettle on. I know when I have to crack the eggs because I know how long it's going to take them to come down the stairs. So there's all those little things that I don't pay attention to. But if you were to make commercials about those moments and do it in a beautiful way, I'm totally emotionally involved with that.
- [35:35]
Jan Karkner
That's exactly what happened in our focus groups. And that's really the human truth that sits behind what we're trying to create here. And we have long term big ambitions to tell those stories in really powerful and emotional ways. But yeah, it was very much an intentional choice to really play back what we heard from consumers. We wanted the advertising we create to be more real, to be more relatable and to really show that we understand how people do mornings and we want to earn a seat at the table in the modern families that we want to connect with going forward.
- [36:08]
Fergus O'Carroll
It's a super rich emotional space, isn't really is focused.
- [36:13]
Amelia Redding
And what you've just described is one of many different scenarios for people in the morning. And we encapsulated that insight as without you do you time in the morning, you start your day comprom. So if you didn't have that moment before you have to, you know, before you hear the kids upstairs rustling around and you know that they're about to sort of explode into your day, then you probably wouldn't be ready. But everyone needs whatever shape or form it takes, everybody needs that moment that is very personal to themselves to ready themselves for the day. And you know, nobody wants to start the day compromised. And of course part of that is making sure that you don't compromise on your serious.
- [37:00]
Fergus O'Carroll
So there's a phase, there's a phased in approach to this. I haven't seen any of those sort of stories yet because I don't think they've really been. They haven't been popularized yet. They haven't. There's been no paid media behind them. That's been pushed and earned, I believe, right where you're. You're encouraging people to submit their stories, their morning rituals, etc. So before we get into that, let's talk about what we've seen on air and around on various platforms. Let's talk about the launch of the relaunch of the brand icon, which apparently I never knew this. The character's name is Cornelius the cockerel and he's the bird who has been your. He's been the Kellogg icon forever.
- [37:47]
Amelia Redding
So Cornelius was a character. In fact, he wasn't really a character in people's memory. He's an icon. He's been a graph logo icon. And we wanted to bring him back to life and breathe life into him because he didn't come encumbered with. He was associated with cornflakes and associated with master brand but he was almost a blank canvas in terms of giving him character and breathing life into him.
- [38:22]
Fergus O'Carroll
So one of the things I'm super curious about, because I'd forgotten about, about Tony the Tiger, Coco the Monkey. Did you guys at some point think, okay, do we bring a portfolio of icons back to life and we just sort of. We breathe new life into these portfolio of icons, or do we just go with the OG did you guys talk about that?
- [38:45]
Amelia Redding
We did. Yeah, we did. We actually had some ideas in that space. Yeah, we did.
- [38:49]
Jan Karkner
Yeah.
- [38:50]
Amelia Redding
Yeah, we did. We had, you know, the Kellogg's ensemble, you know, like the adventures per.
- [38:58]
Fergus O'Carroll
Like the Avengers.
- [38:59]
Amelia Redding
I love that we actually had some scripts on the table. But I think this was one of those moments which, you know, you can often look back in retrospect and go, that was a pivotal moment. We knew that we needed to be really bold and brave. And it felt that if we were shifting to master brand, we needed to be really focused. And actually, the brief was, was the OG Cornelius and Kellogg's are the OG So we didn't want to go back to that sort of sub brand suite of characters.
- [39:37]
Jan Karkner
I think one thing that's really important to remember, and if we go way back to the beginning, we definitely had all that data from Ehrenberg Bass to say Cornelius was a high potential invest asset, but it was no way a mandatory. It was inspiration at that time. And in the brief. Brief was definitely like, leverage our distinctive assets. These are the two biggest. And we had all sorts of inspiration, including, you know, the whole team wearing night shirts with Cornelius on them, Cornelius showing up at the briefing in a costume. But it was really when we saw the work for the first time and we saw how Leo Burnett, the team, had imagined Cornelius coming to life, and how they were positioning him as a bird, our bird who could wake up the world again. We all of a sudden realized that how could we not imagine reigniting Cornelius as part of that campaign? You know, he's the OG of our Kellogg family. Roosters themselves or cockerels themselves, are the symbol of mornings and of new beginnings. And it was just an amazing moment when we all looked at it and thought, how could we not back the bird? And that was the language we started using. You gotta back the bird. The beginning of our conversation about backing the master brand, right, Making that bold choice to back Kellogg's and to really make sure we're reigniting the. The sort of biggest power brand we had. There was only one character, one mascot that really was synonymous with Kellogg's. That was the cockerel. And even if you didn't know his name, everyone recognized that icon.
- [41:02]
Fergus O'Carroll
Yeah, you're right, because Kellogg, he wasn't just cornflakes, he was Kellogg's.
- [41:06]
Jan Karkner
Exactly.
- [41:07]
Fergus O'Carroll
That's a good point. So for those who haven't seen it, you're mostly going to have to go to our website to see it because it's hard to just throw on here. There isn't really an audio track with the spot. But in essence, a great song. Yeah, absolutely is a great song. And so we'll drop a little bit of it in here. But in essence, what you're seeing on screen is a large city. You're coming in from an aerial view. You come down to the street level and there is this Macy's Day parade sized cockerel, the Kellogg's icon, walking down the street. So you're seeing him look in, you see his big eye looking into buildings and he's got this swagger about this great rap track that's playing behind it. And so it's and, and it. And he's phenomenally well done. So you're getting this modern interpretation of what used to be a one dimensional character into this three dimensional person almost that you can fully relate to and has a ton of personal Snap, crackle, pop, pop, fizz, piss. We're known to give a show plus handle our business Stress, stress we destroy. We're known to make noise, to be original B boys in the flesh. And then the out of Home, I think is so beautifully designed. I mean, you cannot miss the out of Home with that focus on the OG in Kellogg positioning this character as the original. Now what's really interesting was this sort of interim step between asking people to share their morning stories and then I'm assuming there'll be some spots that are produced about people's mornings. Is that how it comes together, Jenn?
- [43:08]
Jan Karkner
You're writing a good story there, Fergus. And yes, absolutely, we already had some of those videos yet in Social, so we were able to capture a lot of the kind of social first content that really took a spotlight on some of those you do you moments. So if you're one of those people that loves to eat your granola in silence, we've got a spot for you. If you're one of those dads that's running out of the house and grabbing, you know, a fistful of cereal on your way out the door, we've got kind of a spot that tells your story. So we're just on the beginning of that journey to really dive deeper into the insight and really kind of show up in a consumer facing way that is really real, relevant and reflective of the insights that we heard when we chatted with consumers across Europe.
- [43:54]
Fergus O'Carroll
Emilia, would you add anything to that?
- [43:58]
Amelia Redding
No. I think, as Jen said, we've started that journey. We know there was so much richness in that insight. And the intent has always been this is a long term platform. We are building this see you in the morning platform for years. And we are at the launch point which has been very much about creating that head snap, reigniting the love. And we feel that we've got that tinder, we've got that love definitely reignited with the launch campaign with Cornelius. And the intent is that over time we've laid the foundations. Now we can tell those stories more and more. We've got so much that's come out of the research. We've also got ongoing research which will help us uncover those fan truths and those beautiful moments around the morning. And storytelling can become even more of a stronger part of the brand communication. But I think there's a role for both. We want to be iconic and we want to tell stories. We want to get that engagement at both ends of the con spectrum. So there's plenty to come and plenty of exciting, exciting insight that's going to allow us to connect better and better with our audiences.
- [45:26]
Fergus O'Carroll
So one of the things, Jen, that I've, because I mentioned earlier that I've worked on some of these master brand projects myself, and the one thing I noticed the behind the scenes conversations that happened is that the product brand people would come to me and say, God damn it, I have to throw a percentage of my budget now at this corporate master brand work when I really need it for my own product brand. How do you deal with that sort of funding of a master brand initiative? Is it partly that the product brand budgets need to contribute to it, or is there a whole new assigned budget just for master brand?
- [46:03]
Jan Karkner
Yeah, very, very good question. And definitely something we wrestled with. And it started with what Amelia shared, that we had to organize ourselves differently so not only across the agenc, but within our Kellogg team, really making sure that the whole brand community was working together versus fighting for the same money. So I have one amazing guy on my team, Stephen, who leads our entire consumer and shopper experience team and he owns all of the money. So everyone who works on his team, you know, knows that he's got the. He's got the purse strings and can make sure that the money's divided up fairly. So that's Kind of one thing reshape the way people work and make sure the money sits with one, one per person. And then the other thing was really step back and look at industry best practice. You know, we were so, so fortunate last year to have a chance to go, go and do some can lion creative effectiveness training. We've been listening so much to industry thought leaders and we see all the empirical evidence saying that if you can really prioritize, you know, 60% or so of your budget towards equity because behind big scaled brands and then really ensure you're delivering creative excellence, those are the two most important factors to drive effectiveness. And we're obsessed with creating work that actually is effective. We want people to love our work, we want it to reignite how people feel about Kellogg's. But at the end of the day I also need to make sure it's driving business results.
- [47:28]
Amelia Redding
I was just going to add that I think one of the another sort of secret to the success of the campaign was the fun that we've all been able to have that has shown through in the work. And Cornelius has given us an opportunity to have a lot of fun. And some of the sort of campaign rollout that you won't necessarily have been aware of is we've had projections of Cornelius all over cities across Europe. So it's as if he's strutting around the cities as he is in the film the weather vane on the activation that we, Kayla Herring did to launch the campaign has been amazing as well. You know, it's really excited everyone to be able to have a lot of fun with this. And I think that spirit is hopefully what's going to bleed out into the world and is what people are sort of engaging with already. And we've, you know, we've seen that sort of excitement for what we're doing. And I think that comes and is testament to the fun that we've all had behind the scenes making this happen.
- [48:37]
Fergus O'Carroll
Well, it is a great campaign. I really do like the line See youe in the Morning. And I think you can build an awful lot of rich, rich emotion around that. So excited to share the campaign. You guys can see it. All the components that Amelia mentioned, from the projections to the out of Home to the social to the films, are on our website@onstrategyshowcase.com you can see them. There it is. Jan Kartner, VP, Kellogg Serial Europe for Kalanova and Amelia Redding is strategy partner at Leo Burnett in London. Thank you both for a really, really great conversation today. Appreciate your time.
- [49:15]
Amelia Redding
Thank you. It's been great.
- [49:17]
Jan Karkner
Thank you, Fergus. That was a lot of fun.
- [49:19]
Fergus O'Carroll
And we will see everyone on the next episode.