I laughed when I saw the tennis ball smack Wee Man in the forehead, breaking open his Wonderful Pistachio. I chuckled at the Winklevoss twin, the Keyboard Cat, and the Honey Badger cracked open their pistachios. However, even though these commercials may be humorous, what are they doing to build the brand image of Wonder Pistachios?
As reported by Todd Wasserman of Mashable.com, Wonderful Pistachios have launched a very successful ad campaign. The use of C and D list celebrities and the incorporation of internet “memes” into television commercials has led to a three digit growth in sales over the past year.
However, as Rob Frankel, a LA-based branding expert, pointed out, these commercials do little to build the brand image of Wonderful Pistachios. These commercials give no information to consumers that tell them why they should purchase a $5 bag of Wonderful Pistachio’s over a $2 competitor’s bag. All these commercials are doing is pushing the sales of pistachios…any pistachios, regardless of the brand.
On a personal note, these commercials do not make me want to purchase this product. While I found some of the commercials humorous, I can barely stand the image of Snooki breaking her pistachio open on her tanning bed. This leads an important question: “What value do these celebrities and internet memes contribute to the brand image of Wonderful Pistachios?
Little, it seems.
However, Wasserman points out that Wonderful Pistachios may be using a different sort of tactic. One similar to the marketing campaign launched by the California Milk Processor Board in the early ‘90s. The goal being to increase the consumption of the general product, and not necessarily the consumption of a specific brand. Wasserman paraphrases JFK – the hope is that a rising tide will lift all boats.
Will the use of these sometime tacky celebrities lead to consumers saying, “Got Pistachios?”
Image compliments of infobarrel.com.
The communication goal is providing awareness to the consumer, by giving a clue of the celebrity eating a pistachio. This obviously worked to their advantage since sales are up. I think because so many people live their lives vicariously through celebrities, what they eat is imitated to the point of making the consumer believe they are just as important as who they impersonate. I think this is a great strategy for the companies that pursue a target audience within an advertisement for another product and I do believe the celebrity is giving value to the product.
ReplyDeleteMike, I agree that the Wonderful Pistachios ads lack a strong call to action. What they have been able to achieve is incredible branding. Wonderful Pistachio as a brand was unrecognizable before this campaign started. Now they have become more top-of-mind in their brand recognition. Wonderful Pistachios brand has given themselves a new identity as humorous and entertaining. It will be interesting to see the long term effects of this campaign from a sales perspective, they have definitely become the forefront pistachio brand.
ReplyDeleteI think they have lost an important point in marketing. You need to build the brand image for your company and every man for himself. If you focus on your company's name in the market you will build your sales. If you focus your marketing dollars on building up the brand then you may as well just hand your marketing dollars over to your competitor. When you loose focus of the purpose of marketing, then you loose sales, which means money for your company.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of their own brand I can agree with all of you that the ads seem ineffective. One of the biggest examples of this is the name they present in their ads. "Wonderful" pistachio doesn't call you to purchase the brand. Infact it possibly does the opposite by emphasizing the product over the brand. However, if we looked at it from a product standpoint I bet we would find a significant increase in pistachio sales as a whole. Now if you build a consumer base first that loves pistachios, like me who goes through a large bag in a week, then later you can emphasis why your brand is better. I feel like from a brand standpoint we can all agree that these ads, from an IMC perspective, is ineffective. However, if you look at it from a progressive plan where they first emphasizes the product and then work towards eliminating brand parody could possibly work in the long run.
ReplyDeleteIf the company's goal was branding (and I imagine it to be), they've certainly his the mark. While the commericials lack most sound bits, such as a call to action, they are using humor (I suppose) to get their message across. I think it is a smart business tactic to try to increase sales of the entire pistachio product in order to increase the sales of Wonderful Pistachios. In certain markets, stores may only carry a few brands (where Wonderful Pistachios has the clear advantage)or they are hoping consumers will try the generic brand and will taste the lack in quality compared to their brand. Wonderful Pistachios must be doing something right, if their marketing budget is big enough to support this kind of commerical.
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