Kind bars wants to enlist consumers in changing the world—and buying its snack bars. GoodnessKNOWS would be happy if consumers were just a little bit motivated to better themselves, and make the world even a little better in the process of buying its snack bars, if they would just try—and not be afraid to mess up.
“Try a Little Goodness” is the tagline for the market positioning by Mars’s own brand of simple ingredient fruit, nut and dark chocolate bars that are merchandised in transparent packaging, similar to rival Kind bars. GoodnessKNOWS this summer introduced the latest phase of its campaign, in TV ads that poke good-natured fun at non-actors and non-singers trying out for acting and singing jobs promoting the brand.
“We’re a brand that doesn’t want to take ourselves too seriously, because this is a category that can overpromise on certain aspects of performance, and social good, and things like that,” Eric Epstein, Mars North America director of snacks (right), told brandchannel. “The reality is that they’re snacks, and that’s why people buy them. We wanted a brand personality that leans into that.”
Indeed, since it began US-wide distribution of GoodnessKNOWS in 2015, Mars’s approach to marketing has been to show actors portraying efforts to do good things but faltering a bit along the way. In one commercial, for instance, a woman goes to a gym to work out but can’t quite master the steps in the class and ends up knocking a woman beside her during a routine.
Then came “Know a Note,” in which 100 people were asked to “try a little goodness by learning a single note. Then we made them famous by turning their notes into greatness. Well, maybe. Depends if you share the video. Just saying. Musical careers are in your hands.”
This year, its latest ads show how there can be slip-ups when people are trying to come up with jingles or act in commercials, and that’s OK. The ads show backstage flubs, even people messing up the product names. Epstein said these moments weren’t staged.
Mars also is trying to expand retail space and sales for GoodnessKNOWS with new flavors and new packaging. GoodnessKNOWS Snack Squares still trail Kind, which has a 9.8 percent share of the overall US snack-bar category, according to Euromonitor International. General Mills holds a 22 percent share in the $6.8 billion US snack bar category.
We spoke with Epstein about marketing Mars’s most important better-for-you snack.
You’ve doubled the number of flavors for GoodnessKnows this year. Why?
One thing we’ve kept very consistent is the delivery of the product, because we believe that to provide any sort of nutritional value, you need to want to eat it—and that’s one thing people love about this product.
GoodnessKnows strikes a balance: It’s something that tastes great but also has better-for-you credentials, and we extend that into a variety of flavors to meet that variety of choices.
And while it’s distinctive, why are GoodnessKnows bars square?
The fact that we’re [square] allows us to meet some needs that other brands and products in the category don’t – such as “one for now, one for later,” and portion control throughout the day.
How do you contrast your brand with that of Kind, which takes its social mission very seriously?
GoodnessKNOWS also is unique in its personality, but we want to address the consumer who is not trying to achieve perfection but rather take one step at a time toward a better version of themselves—one small square at a time. And that comes through in our communications.
It’s important to us to be relatable. This is a category that is still very developing and crowded from a shelf-step standpoint. It’s still at a relatively new life stage. So there is an opportunity to bring more people along on the journey, and most people are like us in some way. We all have flaws and we can relate to brands that acknowledge that.
The idea of taking one small step at a time toward a better version of ourselves is one that we felt was pretty powerful to us, and we thought it would be to the masses too.
Who are you trying to appeal to with this campaign?
Our consumers are the ones that are aware that their journeys to self-improvement are going to be smaller steps at a time. If you’re running a marathon, [GoodnessKnows] won’t be your marathon fuel, and we’re OK with that. But if you’re doing your first yoga or cardio class to see if it’s for you, that might be the kind of person who would use this for a snack.
We try not to be prescriptive but to position ourselves as a brand that understands that people are a work in progress and can understand how we fit into their lifestyle.
How did you overhaul your packaging this year?
We highlighted flavor names and the simple ingredients list more than before. Photographs of the product are highlighted more. The packaging material is shinier. It has a bit more personality, which makes it more approachable, relatable and shoppable.
One thing we do recognize is this is a category where people are looking for a variety of flavors and choices, so we’re bringing [that] to the forefront and making it easy to shop—which has been missing in this category, and it was missing with our first offerings.
Being distinctive and shoppable are things that we recognize as of critical importance in such a crowded category. The reality is that consumers don’t spend a lot of time poring over their choices. They like to use their subconscious to make quick decisions and [our new packaging] allows them to do that a little better.
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