Overview

We identified how to reposition Frylight from a niche diet proposition to a mainstream healthy alternative to cooking oil.

ClientDairy Crest
SkillsBrand Development, Brand Planning, Concept Development, Research Leadership. Workshop Leadership & Facilitation, Creative Development

Challenge

Frylight was a successful brand but one with a niche positioning – a low calorie cooking spray for dieters and weight conscious consumers. Mainstream consumers rejected the brand as they believed cooking oils to be part of a healthy diet and therefore didn’t question their current behaviour.

Solution

Two rounds of qualitative research were conducted. The first round of research was designed to identify current brand and product perceptions amongst mainstream health conscious consumers. A major barrier to trial was uncovered, the product was believed to be ‘unnatural’ and ‘artificial’ and therefore unlikely to be healthy.

Following the first round of research, a claims workshop was conducted to define desirable claim territories which were capable of overcoming the barrier to usage uncovered in the research. The claim ‘Contains nothing artificial’ was identified and validated with technical support. This claim was added to the front of pack as a reassurance for the shopper and was tested as a supporting reason to believe for the brand’s health positioning.

A sequential concept recycling model was then used to define the brand’s communication strategy. Ten concepts were build following a one day workshop with the Frylight team. These concepts were then filtered, refined and optimised by cycling them through a series of research groups. Following each round of research, the strongest concepts were carried forward and refined based on consumers’ feedback.

The final communication strategy was then validated through consumer depth interviews.

Results

In quantitative neurological consumer testing, the creative work developed from the communication strategy reached the 87th percentile: beating 9 out of 10 brands for recall. Core brand attributes were also strengthened.

The ambitious first year brand penetration stretch target set by the client was exceeded within 3 months.

The friction

Brand taken from a niche to a mainstream proposition whilst retaining the brand’s essence and strengthening its core brand equity attributes.