Thirteen Years of Consumer Love: The Maltesers Reindeer
Most product launches fade after the first Christmas.
The Maltesers Reindeer? It’s been earning love letters from consumers for 13 years.
We’re incredibly proud of the pivotal role Brand Development played in helping the Mars’ Seasonal Team create this much-loved, seasonal icon …
Thirteen Year Evolution From Idea to Seasonal Icon
How The Maltesers Reindeer Was Created
Way back in 2008, Mars’ Seasonal Team challenged us to help them disrupt the Easter self-treat category.
We kicked off an insight-led Innovation Sprint where we gathered insights, brainstormed ideas, ate a lot of chocolate, crafted concepts and co-created with super-consumers. After a couple of months of intensive work, the MaltEaster Bunny was born.
Within just 12 weeks of launch, the Bunny had already generated £3.3m sales and was clearly going to be a runaway success. Unsurprisingly, Mars asked us to help them repeat the magic for Christmas!
Balancing Strategy With Consumer Insight
We worked closely with Mars’ Marketing & Trade teams to understand their commercial challenge – but we also generated fresh insights from consumers that inspired & shaped the creative process.
Brainstorming Disruptive Creative Solutions
We pushed the team to leverage learnings from the success of the Bunny – and stimulated them to generate ideas that would delight consumers AND build on the fun & excitement of the Maltesers master-brand.
Crafting & Evolving Compelling Concepts
Amongst the huge number of ideas generated was the concept of a mischievous reindeer, who, after some fast-track filtering & consumer co-creation, quickly evolved into the Maltesers Reindeer – along with an ongoing pipeline of format and flavour ideas designed to keep the strategy fresh over time.
“Brand Development have a rare and impressive mix of skills: they’re creative, innovative and commercially astute. They understand the corporate culture of their clients, so always find the right solutions for their innovation needs.
They’ve helped me on several occasions to launch commercially successful NPD – and are a hugely valued business partner.”
Head of Marketing, Seasonal & Gifting Chocolate
Let us help you innovate!
We can help you spot new opportunities for innovation, but we can also help you craft your existing concepts into winners …
And it doesn’t have to cost a fortune or take long to make it happen.
In our experience, a modest investment in:
- Understanding your consumer – and what they care about
- Creating relevant & differentiated propositions – which genuinely add value
- Crafting motivating claims & branding – that really cut through at the point of purchase
Will dramatically improve your prospects of success
No matter how big your innovation challenge, tight your timeline, or modest your budget – we have the agile insight, concepting & co-creation tools that will help you understand your consumers’ unmet needs and generate the growth you need.
Give us a call on +44 1491 411272, or connect with David or Joanna via LinkedIn
We custom-build solutions for every client – that deliver brilliant results!