Dive Brief:
- Two J.M. Smucker coffee brands — 1850 Coffee and Folgers — kicked off fresh marketing campaigns, according to press announcements from each company. Both efforts come from Publicis Groupe's Power of One solution, PSOne, which is a dedicated agency for the J.M. Smucker Company.
- 1850 Coffee's new "Quality That's Criminal" campaign centers around a comedic and cinematic 2-minute ad about a cop investigating contraband coffee. Men hide mugs of the brew inside their coats and hidden bottles because it is so pure that it's not legal. The campaign outreach includes broadcast, online video and social activations.
- Folgers released a modern edition of its classic "The Best Part of Wakin' Up Is Folgers in Your Cup" campaign. In the new spot, a choir of singers decked out in red satin robes break the tension of stressful mornings with their cups of Folgers coffee. The campaign includes three broadcast spots, online video, digital banners, social media and digital radio.
Dive Insight:
The marketing push behind its coffee brands come as J.M. Smucker is experiencing weakness in its pet foods business amid heightened competition, which is dragging down the company's overall performance. The Folgers brand, in particular, has been a bright spot for the company, leading in ground coffee sales and ranking high with consumers. 1850 Coffee debuted last year as a premium grocery line.
J.M. Smucker has shifted its marketing strategy to increase awareness and drive brand growth among digitally savvy consumers. These two campaigns are part of the approach to targeting consumers with entertaining and humorous content through both broadcast and digital channels.
Last year, the company shuffled its marketing team and consolidated its relationship with 12 agencies to a single holding company — Publicis Groupe — to speed up and optimize its creative. The CPG company is now starting to release the first efforts under the new partnership.
The company appears to be betting on updating its marketing across its stable of classic packaged foods brands to drive sales at a time when consumers show a growing preference for fresh and less-processed foods, a trend that's put a dent in sales for big CPG food brands.
Publicis recently launched new campaigns for J.M. Smucker's signature jelly brand Smucker's and peanut butter brand Jif. Both efforts focused on modernizing these iconic brands. The "Father Nature" effort promoted Smuckers' with the tagline "With A Name Like Smucker's It's Got To Be Good." Jif's "That Jif'ing Good" campaign added humor to its messaging, a departure from its traditional approach to mom-focused creative, according to a report in MediaPost.
In the same spirit, modernizing Folger's iconic tagline punches up a classic with a more modern twist.
