« Co branding is interpreted as a brand extension in order » to leverage the value of the brand… to take the brand into a new market » (Blackett, Boad, p133). Company wants to make consumers more aware of their brands by doing some co-branding. The appreciation of the co-branded product relies on the previous knowledge of both brands and their products. This is the reason why brand try to create co branded product when both brand can us the image and notoriety of the other brand.
If we take the example of Milka, people love this chocolate, the main brand value is « sharing a tenderness moment ». Philadelphia is an industrial brand of cream cheese. Both belong to the Mondelez International Group but they have different strategy marketing. The group decided to regroup this two brands in order to create a chocolate spread in order to develop theirs awareness and directly attack the leading Nutella the French Market.
Mondelez want to create originals products by using Milka brand because it has a notoriety of 99% in France. Actually, more than 1 family out of 3 eats Milka chocolate every day. »
Another example should be Côte d’Or. Indeed, due to its strong brand Côte d’Or represents the pleasure to eat a dark chocolate; this is why Yoplait, Eo and Lu try to do some co-branding. The product did not last long either due to a lack on marketing consistency or not wanted by the consumer but the purpose was clear… use the notoriety of one brand to make their consumer know and try the other brand. They tried to be present on new segment and create or develop the demand.
Unfortunately sometimes products don’t last and brands have to be creative to attract and retain new consumer.
Valentine’s day, such as any holiday, has its lot of clichés. It can be summed up in three words: red, roses, chocolate.
How to make customers go beyond this classic triangle?
In Spain, the Fullsix agency, an independent communication agency, came with Milka’s advertising campaign for February 14th, organising a street marketing action that participants would remember for a long time.
Spreading Tenderness
Milka’s mission on this very special day was to bring people together, especially couples, by giving them a challenge: participate in a karaoke, but, instead of singing, the couples had to kiss in rhythm with Le beau Danube bleu, the famous Strauss waltz.
Milka proves that Valentine’s day doesn’t have to be just red and roses -although chocolate seems essential-, but tenderness comes with a very simple kiss!
This campaign helps building the brand image around its catchphrase, ‘Dare to be tender’. The brand is everywhere: the easily recognisable stained with white, a reminder of the Milka Cow. This campaign shows that Milka is determined to make the consumer feel close to them, and even feel like they have a feeling of belonging with the brand. Sharing and building a relationship is at the heart of this campaign.
As a reward: a tasting of the chocolates in the end, as tender as the kisses!
Easter, with the Christmas holiday, is the best time of year to eat chocolate. As a child, my friends and I would organise egg hunts in our gardens and spend the afternoon trying to find the precious chocolate, and this is one of the best memories I can associate with chocolate.
In 2013, the Buzzman agency, who works on Milka’s communication, extended the concept of an egg hunt, combining advertising and online gaming. The campaign was a frank success and was renewed this year.
Milka’s advergaming (neologism coming from advertising and gaming) campaign, ‘Oeufs cachés‘ (meaning Hidden Eggs), offered its French consumers the chance to participate in a digital hunt updated in real time, with a garden that was the size of France.
To participate, it was very simple, you only had to log on the website, and from the moment you entered the hunt, you could see how many participants you were playing against, and had 5 minutes to scratch the herb and try to find as many eggs as possible.
This hunt was not for entertainment purposes only;, if you found an egg, you would get a price: either vouchers, or gifts such as phones, iPads, etc.
The game is free, fun, entertaining, easy to play even for non-gamers: everyone has a chance to win, and enjoy a nice time.
The constraint is that you can only play for 5 minutes a day. When scratching the eggs, you can find bonuses that give you extra time to play the game.
How is this advergame positive for Milka?
Advergaming enables the brand, namely Milka, to build a relationship with the customer in a fun, entertaining way, without being too intrusive. The game format allows the consumer to interact with the brand in a positive way, and a memorable one: even if the game lasts only 5 minutes in general, having 5 minutes of time in a consumer’s life only dedicated to your brand is a challenge nowadays, when people are permanently solicited by ads.
In Milka’s ‘Oeufs cachés’, all the players do the hunt simultaneously on the same garden at any given time, which involves them in the game, and reinforces their positive image of the brand. Indeed, the competition and the rewards, apart from improving the consumers’ intention of sales towards Milka; makes the consumer feel the shiver of playing a game with real stakes.
This kind of advertising proves to be a very good way to involve the consumer in the brand, something in which Milka is becoming an expert.
Côte d’Or is all about a qualitative chocolate with an intense taste of cacao. It brings pleasure while eating it. The values conveyed by the brand are authenticity and intensity. Both are directly related to the chocolate itself, authenticity by the engagement of the brand with local producers and intensity through a strong taste of cacao.
The Côte d’Or identity is truly specific, it evokes an intense chocolate taste, a good quality, a selected cocoa as well as a centennial know-how. Even if the brand has a broad category of products, the identity stays in the tasting universe.
Positioning:
On the mass market premium segment for adult. A sustainable and responsible chocolate. At the moment, in France and Belgium the black chocolate tablet (more than 70% cocoa) contain at least 30% of cocoa coming from verified Rainforest Alliance™ exploitation. Over time, the final objective is to only use that kind of chocolate for the complete range of product.
Target:
The targets are the adult who wants to savor a tasty piece of chocolate. An adult who want to succumb to the temptation of a delicious piece of chocolate.
Packaging:
With a sober (through warm and dark colors) yet effective packaging, Côte d’Or wants to give the image of a qualitative and premium brand. Usually the consumers does not really know what he wants to buy so it will be an impulse buy that is why the color, the logo and the ingredients (with pictures) are really important to attract the consumer.
Over the years the packaging and logo evolved, at the beginning there was one palmer and 3 pyramids as well as the elephant to evoke the exoticism of the Ghana, but later on they to refine the logo to only keep the elephant, the symbol of strength, stability, memory and longevity.
Distribution:
Nowadays, the brand is sold in about twenty countries among them Germany, Greece, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Italy, Lebanon, Japan, South Africa, US… but the best sellers are Belgium, Holland and France.
The selling points are the following:
80% in supermarket
15% chocolate’s artisant
5% restaurateurs, internet
Communication:
Côte d’Or is present everywhere, the purpose for the brand is to known as the expert of the chocolate for the mass market. Over the years they create different kinds of TV adds because they wanted the consumer to remembered them as a strong, sustainable and with a specific intense taste of cocoa. They also create a buzz last year with a street marketing campaign: «Afrodisiaque, le vrai pouvoir du chocolat» and a media campaign: “a world without chocolate” they wanted to emphasize on the importance of the chocolate in everybody life and the values of brand instead of the product. In supermarket, where you can find the products, they implement some specific action to attract the consumer like some corners or display.
DisplayDisplay
Main competitors:
Of course, even if Côte d’Or is well known among the mass market, it also has a lot of great competitors. For instance, we can identify 2 main competitors that are direct competitors with almost the same target and positioning:
Nestlé:
Nestlé
Lindt:
Lindt
In addition, we can find other competitors that are not directly addressing exactly to the same target but are offering an alternative like private label, Ivoria.
SWOT Analysis
Strenghs
Premium brand
Broad range of product
Affordable price for the quality (and compare to competitors)
Old valuable brand
Seen as responsible and sustainable brand
Intense cocoa taste
Easy to find (eye catching packaging)
Assisted awareness: 99% (Ipsos 2011)
Weaknesses
Not the leader on the category
Not enough communication
Failed of co-branding
Opportunities
Consumers attached to nature and sustainable development
Côte d’or: Participate in an Activity of Sustainable development with Cultivator of CACAO
Recently, Côte d’or collaborated with an ONG Care International for a project of marketing to convey its sense of social responsibility. The subject of the project is to develop the plantation of cacao and living standard of cultivator in Batéguédia II (a village of Côte d’Ivoire), which is famous for plantation of cacao and café.
How would Côte d’or proceed for the goal of sustainable development?
There are 2 missions. One is to plant banana trees to protect young cacao trees form the exposure of sunshine. The reason is that sunshine will affect the quality of cacaos during the growth of cacao tree and the blades of banana are wide enough to supply the shadow for young cacao tree. At the same time, the cultivators could also benefit from these banana trees.
The other mission is to interplant five categories of vegetable (tomatoes, eggplants, gumbo, pepper and green bean) with cacao. Because of cultivators could only harvest cacao twice per year and the productivity is pretty low. If the project is carried out, it could create job opportunities for the youngsters and increase the income of the local cultivators.
How could clients participate in this project?
The method is simple and interesting. Clients just need to put the code on the packaging of Côte d’or chocolat into the input box of its Internet site. Then the clients could choose one type of plant for his mission. Next, he should choose one part of the land to plant his plant. At last, clients could share this experience in his facebook with his family and friends. The goal of Côte d’or is to plant 200,000 plants before 31 may 2015.
In my opinion, this activity is really a smart way to give a good impression of Côte d’or’s social responsability to its clients. Because the social responsablity is not a value added for the products of Côte d’or, but it will impact the decisions of the clients who are more concern with the social development and environmental situation. So Côte d’or doesn’t need to invest a lot to this point, it just needs to contribute a little to let their clients know their attitude.
This project perfectly balances the investment and impression output. On the one side, the plantation could be regarded as one way to increase the productivity of their cultivators, and on the other side, this project could be also regarded as a contribution of Côte d’or to the local people.
Meanwhile, its collaboration the ONG Care International also contribute an positive impression to this « non-profit » project. In addition, the change of packaging for this project could be ignored. Côte d’Or just adds a code in the corner of the packaging. Above all, the project « Partenaire pour le meilleur » will be a success try for Côte d’Or to convey its great social reponsability to the public.
chocol4te lovers 
