Diamond Shreddies: A new angle on a familiar product
For those of you who may not be familiar with it, Shreddies is a breakfast cereal consisting of little woven, malted squares of whole grain wheat.
Produced by Post Cereals, Kraft subsidiary, Shreddies has been sold for over 60 years in the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand, where it has become a familiar and well-loved part of the breakfast cereal landscape. The brand has always been one of the powerhouses of Post Cereals' portfolio in those markets.
But 60 years is a long time for any brand to maintain a leadership position... especially in a market as competitive as breakfast cereals.
Canadian consumers have always had very positive perceptions and memories about Shreddies. Many grew up with it, but it wasn't on their radar when they got to the grocery aisle, particularly when they were buying for their kids.
And yet the cereal itself tested as positively as ever. Consumers loved Shreddies just the way they were, and didn't want anything changed.
How do you increase sales on a product that its buyers don't want changed?
That was the challenge that Kraft handed to Ogilvy, their Toronto ad agency, in September 2006.
Enter Hunter Somerville, a 26-year old intern at Ogilvy, who found himself assigned to the somewhat mundane task of coming up with a fun concept for the back of the Shreddies box.
Somerville had only been with the agency for 3 months. His background included a stint on the comedy improv circuit, so perhaps it was natural for him to want to look at things from a different angle. In fact, he admits he got into advertising because he saw it as another way to make people laugh – while getting paid an actual salary for a change!
So there he was, facing what every ad writer hates and loves: an empty page, and a deadline. He needed to find a way to grab people's attention, tweak their imagination (and their funnybone) and make them look at Shreddies in a whole new way.
Since there had been no real marketing investment in this brand for the previous 15 years, all he really had to work with was the product itself: a little square of whole wheat.
One day, sitting around a table in a creative brainstorming session with a group of creatives all with their bowl of Shreddies in front of them, Somerville held up a Shreddie and turned it 45 degrees. "Look - it's not a square, it's a diamond" he said (perhaps not literally).
Laughter and groans all around. "Yeah yeah, next!"
"Square. Diamond. Square. Diamond."
While Somerville thought this was a funny gag, he didn't see it as groundbreaking. In fact, he initially thought it was "the stupidest, worst idea ever".
But the senior creative team saw a bigger possibility inside its simplicity. The leader of the creative group, Nancy Vonk, gets particular credit here, because when even the ideas originator thought it was stupid, she became a champion and asked Somerville to write the idea up.
And so he did. It was a gag at first. And as it became a full fledged idea, the possibility became more clever.
Suddenly, consumers would (supposedly) have a choice to make: the old, traditional square Shreddies they already knew and loved... or the new, somehow more exotic "diamond" shape.
He simple idea came to life and, amazingly, when presented to the Post clients, they loved it.
It was tested and did incredibly well, and then started to gain momentum - first virally and then with billboards, TV spots, print and multiple Internet applications. New "Diamond Shreddies" packaging was launched in major markets, (containing the same Shreddies as every other box, of course...but you did not hear that here!).There was even a special "Mix pack" containing both Diamonds and Squares, for those who were still on the fence.
The TV launch spots looked like typical "hidden camera" focus groups (which in fact they were). Consumers were interviewed about their impressions of the new "Diamond" Shreddies, and asked to rate them 1-10, or A-Z, or compare them to an animal.
The spots end by asking consumers to try for themselves, and to go to diamondshreddies.com and vote online for their preference.
Now, obviously, nobody is actually likely to be fooled here (at least, not for long). In fact, the whole concept succeeds because consumers are in on the joke. That's what is so brilliant about it.
They know the cereal hasn't changed; but they are inspired by the wackiness of the concept, and the way it pokes fun at traditional advertising and marketing. And along the way, they get the clear message that Shreddies is already as good as it can get.
The campaign very quickly generated very real results, as consumers joined in on the fun. Within its first two months the website attracted over 95,000 unique visitors, including 28,000 who cast their vote for "Diamonds" or "Squares". (Diamonds are still ahead in the polling as of this writing!)
Some people were still uncertain whether the new format was for real, or simply a joke; the debate quickly went viral and spread. Online interest generated over 55 Facebook groups, 28 YouTube postings and innumerable messages.
The campaign continues to win accolades and awards, especially from the ad industry it parodies; its ingenuity is thrashed out on advertising blogs, and it has won or been nominated for many of the industry's best-known prizes.
The Shreddies brand has been revived in consumers' minds... and its market share, which leapt upward by 18 points in the first month of the campaign, has continued to perform well above expectations.
As you can imagine, that makes the campaign more than a bit interesting for a lot of people in the marketing and packaged goods industries – especially with the kind of challenging business climate most sectors are experiencing these days. Within Kraft, the campaign has become a touchstone against which all new pitches are measured.
All because someone rotated a piece of breakfast cereal 45 degrees!
Which prompts me to ask a few questions to all of you who are leaders in your businesses:
How many Hunter Somerville's do you have working for you whose voices are never heard because they don't have a title or a legacy?
How many leaders like Nancy Vonk do you have with the wisdom and patience to see possibility and nurture an incredibly risky idea like this through?
How many simple ideas have been rejected as "the stupidest idea ever" because they did not have a champion?
And how may challenges do you have which simply need to be looked at from a different angle.
Innovation can come from anywhere. But as leaders, we have to be open to possibility, no matter the form it come in or its source.
The greatest ad agencies in the world understand this. And they view the nurturing of young talent and raw ideas as one of their most important tasks.
It's the basis of constant innovation - and it is a principle from which any business can learn.
