Category Case Studies

Unilever family spreads: Country Crock/Rama/Blue Band

Unilever family spreads:
Country Crock/Rama/Blue Band/Milda

Brand positioning & communication brief development

Country Crock, Rama, Milda and Blue Band are a group of Unilever spread brands with the same ‘family goodness’ positioning in the USA , Germany, The Netherlands, Greece, Sweden & Turkey.

We’ve done many projects with this group including developing a new communications strategy based around a health benefit focused on growing kids – working out a way to make a complex subject not just accessible but emotionally engaging. Recently we worked on a long-term future strategy project working out how the brands could / should develop their overall positioning & product offering.



Campina Lactose Free

Campina Lactose free

Innovation / Brand positioning / Communications Brief

As one of Europe’s biggest dairy producers, Campina wanted to find the most compelling way to position a lactose free range.

We used Adcepts to scope all the options and researched with two types of consumer: those who knew they were lactose intolerant & those who weren’t diagnosed, but had occasional problems with bloating & indigestion. Being able to look at multiple angles was invaluable as it unearthed that consumers needed to be spoken to in a very specific way for them to engage. This led to a precise communications brief and a successful launch campaign.

Campina Milk

Positioning & communications brief development

‘Milk is even better than you thought’. Campina had been trying to explain this in concept statements but had failed to shift consumers’ perceptions. B7’s approach meant we could revisit areas with potential as well as exploring new areas. The result: a communications strategy which provided an amazingly simple way of communicating a complex technical story.

Milner cheese

Re-positioning & communications brief development

Milner is Holland’s biggest selling cheese, but is seen as a ‘diet’ cheese – not the real thing. Our work resulted in a communications strategy that remained true to the brand’s identity but showed how a real step-change could be achieved when taste credentials were communicated convincingly.



Arla’s Kaergarden Spreadable Butter

Castello

Brand positioning / Communication brief / Innovation

We’ve worked with the Castello team for many years. Castello was Arla’s Danish Blue cheese brand. The ambition was to grow the brand by launching globally and transforming it into a brand that could ‘hold’ different types of cheese – not just Danish Blue. Our first task was to develop a global positioning. Using Adcepts we scoped multiple angles for how the brand could develop and be distinctive emotionally & rationally. This work led to Mother’s global campaign.

Our next task was to scope innovation ideas for the brand. It wasn’t enough to simply launch generic cheeses – they had to be simple, distinctive propositions that could stand out in the huge (& bewildering) cheese category. We used Adcepts to scope multiple innovation ideas which led to the launch of several new lines. We then worked on developing the next stage of innovation ideas – they haven’t been launched yet so unfortunately we can’t talk about them.


Natura Cheese

Positioning an innovation /Communication brief development

Arla planned to launch Natura, a pale, uncoloured hard cheese within the everyday yellow cheese market across Europe. They wanted to differentiate it from competitors in a way that provided a good fit with the Arla brand.

A range of potential positionings was explored using Adcepts, resulting in a precise communications brief and a successful launch throughout Europe.



Budweiser Budvar / Czechvar

Budweiser Budvar / Czechvar

Brand positioning & communication brief development

Anheuser-Busch had famously been involved in protracted litigation with the owners of the original Budweiser brand, based in the Czech Republic, before eventually settling the dispute and ending up with the distribution rights in the US. Our challenge was to find a unique positioning for the Czech brand that would be both motivating in its own right, and was clearly differentiated from the giant U.S. Budweiser brand.



Philips

Philips

Innovation Scoping

Over the years we have worked with Philips several times. This is a good example of the B7 methodology being used in sectors that are not advertised. We use Adcepts to explore messages, benefits, ideas, & angles rather than as a route to developing advertising.

We have worked with the global innovation groups helping develop and scope innovation ideas for lighting in several key sectors: office lighting, factory lighting, lighting in parks and street lighting. In each case we worked with teams in India, China and the global team and we brought alive all the potential benefits & angles for multiple ideas. They were researched with the key global trade customers – architects, town planners, developers etc. Each idea has multiple executions and so is given its best chance of success and because each represents a different angle the exact appeal of each innovation was easily pinpointed to give a clear brief for further development & focus.