Kraft took consumers by surprise this week by announcing the retirement of its two cubs. The food company, however, announced on Friday that it was all just an April Fool’s joke.
• Read also: April Fool’s Day: The Kraft Bear Cubs Are Not Retiring
• Read also: Retirement time for the Kraft cubs
In an interview with TVA Nouvelles, professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Ottawa, Luc Dupont, recalled the importance of this character duo for the peanut butter brand.
They alone allow Kraft to stand out from the competition and earn millions of dollars.
“What’s the difference between No Name Peanut Butter, or the house brand, and Kraft Peanut Butter? I’ll give you the bull’s-eye: it’s basically those two little bear cubs. It’s as simple as that,” says Luc Dupont.
The latter specifies that if Kraft had disposed of the teddy bears, it would have lost its identity at the same time and many consumers would undoubtedly have gone for the cheapest peanut butter, rather than going with the one whose symbol is the most known.
“For a long time, we believed that human beings were rational creatures. What we have known in marketing for years, if not decades, is that we are essentially emotional creatures,” says Luc Dupont.
The professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Ottawa recalls that in a grocery store, there are generally between 10,000 and 20,000 products. Yet the consumer is unaware of a large part of them and, in the end, only really sees a few dozen of them. And for Luc Dupont, it’s the logo and the brand image that make the difference between a product seen and one completely ignored.
Furthermore, the marketing expert adds that Kraft’s April Fool’s Day is an excellent marketing move.
By falsely announcing the departure of the cubs, Kraft created an interaction with many Internet users who declared their love for the two mascots.
“It worked, because we talked regarding it a lot in the media. It was launched on social media platforms, picked up by traditional media. All that is low-cost visibility,” says Mr. Dupont.
To see the full interview, watch the video above.
