Word: yoplait
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Some of the pink-ribbon promotions don't make much sense financially. Take Yoplait's offer to donate 10¢ to the Komen Foundation for every pink yogurt lid mailed to the company from September through December. Komen would get a bigger donation if consumers simply donated the 39¢ it costs to buy each stamp, not to mention the fact that donors would have to polish off 100 yogurts to come up with a $10 contribution--a formula that surely enriches Yoplait more than the breast-cancer cause...
...Yoplait, less is more. "The buying rate and household penetration are low, about 46%, [but] the mix of people eating yogurt will be widespread," says Robert Waldron, Yoplait division president. Yoplait's foray into the kid category with Go-Gurt in 1998 may have seeded generations of growth. Moms in the suburbs outside Minneapolis were among the first to toss the 2.25-oz. tubes full of such flavors as Strawberry Splash to children who, sans spoons, squeezed it on the go. Five years later, kids ages 8 to 12 were choosing yogurt as a snack 8 1/2 times as often...
...appeal is its convenience. "Yogurt has this wonderful halo of health, but the ease is what drives the category. In the mid-'80s, pizza was the food of the day. Today it's yogurt," he says. "Clearly it's a structural change in the way we're eating." Yoplait's goal, says Waldron, is to get yogurt into more meals and snacks during the day, on more days of the week...
...advertising to educate consumers about the health and digestive benefits of probiotics--and make them more aware of Dannon's Activia and probiotic drink DanActive. Dairy groups in Europe, where probiotics are well established, see the segment as a major driver of growth over the next few years. "Yoplait will understand the success of Activia and follow soon," says Dannon CEO Juan Carlos Dalto. It's not every CEO who invites competition, but here's his logic: "You don't need only one company doing the job--you need the two or three leading brands...
...where does that leave Yoplait, which thus far has sat on the sidelines of the organic and probiotics trends? Analysts say it could buy its way in. The obvious target would be Horizon, the No. 2 brand in organic dairy products. But Waldron appears content to enjoy Yoplait's spot as the nation's No. 1 brand. He would say only that he is watching for the day when "emerging yogurt segments will have more mass appeal...