Brands do not have a warranty certificate.

Standard & Snacks – Case Study.
A few years ago we had the opportunity to create for Standard & Snacks some product identities which had a great potential to become dominant brands on the market. These are mainly: Bazzaconi, Ou!Ps and Rontzy. Other products by the same company that we have created from scratch, were: Zazzaa, Standard’s Chips, Zoo Chips, Fish Chips, N’Ice Tea and so on. The case studies for development and product identity have been carried out over several years and, unfortunately, some of these products are present today only in our internal portfolio (apart from those that had the chance to be “present on the shelf”).

The premises from which the success of Bazzaconi, Ou!Ps and Rontzy came from were:
1. The market for packaged snacks was still in its infancy – this was a great opportunity for our client to ensure his dominance;
2. The customer had developed national production and distribution capacities that have been unheard of, up until that moment. Because of this, the company had a great force of imposing itself on the market;
3. International players were still sort of shy, being more present on the market through imports;
4. The only national competitor with a product portfolio – Star Chips – was reluctant to develop this portfolio, to invest in production capacity, in distribution and in branding;
5. In the segment of packed biscuits with flavors, the only real competitor was Salatini, which ruled this segment only because they were the only ones present on the market.

Our strategy was:
1. Having top-notch product quality and competitive prices;
2. Having various and differentiated products -appearance, recipe, taste;
3. Extending the range of products;
4. Occupying the shelf space;
5. Trading marketing and POSM: Creating our own spaces for product display;
6. Making the brand present in all types of retail – aggressive distribution;
7. Finding a memorable name and design, differentiated (from a visual and language perspective) from any product of the competition;
8. Having a brand strategy that is aimed primarily to young people.

Results:

Bazzaconi.
This product managed, in a very short amount of time, to completely overtake Salatini, becoming a “Xerox” of packaged biscuits. The public demanded Bazzaconi, Salatini was in free fall and the whole category of biscuits with various flavours became, at that time, Bazzaconi. For the client and for us, it was a great success to simply name the category after the product we dealt with: starting from the name to the entire extension of the packaging range. Basically, apart from Bazzaconi, there is no competition in the packaged biscuits segment.

Ou!Ps.
In this case, the situation was also very clear. . Ou!Ps became no. 1 in the segment of snacks for children and young people. At that time, the owner declared that: “with Ou!Ps you made me rich”.

Rontzy.
Rontzy became the no. 1 pretzel sticks producer in Romania. Period. Rontzy’s character simply made the consumers go crazy because it was an extremely differentiated approach from any product on the market at the time, just like Bazzaconi and Ou!Ps.

The current situation:
– The sketches of the major success of these three product lines are still preserved in the collective memory of the market, even if S&S is currently insolvent.

Reasons why S&S no longer has supremacy:
1. Marketing department and poorly developed skills;
2. Minor investments in marketing and communication (atl and btl) even when they were notified about the moment in which the competition became stronger;
3. The belief that recently gained dominant positions can be maintained effortlessly, in the long run;
4. The acquisition of Star Chips by Pepsico (Lays) and the investments made in marketing and communication;
5. Investments in economic areas other than “core business”, which led to major cash flow problems.

Our conclusions:
Brands do not have a warranty certificate. They are dependent on the consistency of the way brand strategy and its reflections are applied in all forms of manifestation and brand management. Low attention to certain directions or ignoring others, ignoring competition and not adapting the measures and means of brand management can lead to unfortunate cases – in which brands that could have made history have turned upside down.

N.B. The title of the case study is inspired by Iulia Cimpoeru. Thank you, Iulia!