Wait...I Forgot I Was A Consumer Too.
If I were to write a letter to the Kashi brand as a consumer, here's what it might sound like.
Dear Kashi,
I’m writing you this letter to tell you exactly how to get me to be one of the best advocates for your brand. I love your slogan “7 whole grains on a mission,” and I think your brand stands for something really great—making healthy foods taste good and wanting people to crave healthy food. But, you haven’t really been that creative in getting people to be advocates for your brand.
Being a healthy, good-tasting food brand gives you so many opportunities to target those trying to eat right (or at least think they are eating right). The fact that so many people are overweight in this country is not necessarily a bad thing—as it provides plenty of content for you guys to leverage on, and that’s by having people share their weight loss stories and tips on how to get active and healthy.
Your brand is perfect for the next best Pinterest profile page. You could include all kinds of things that people already love to pin on Pinterest including weight loss tips, quotes of fitness inspiration, healthy recipes, pictures of great looking food, etc.
Your brand should definitely sponsor some sort of mobile application to make it easier for people to be healthy. People will appreciate that a trusted brand name like Kashi knows what they’re doing or talking about. Either having some sort of calorie-counter that helps you lose weight (something like MyFitnessPal has now), or having a healthy food generator where people can enter in different types of healthy foods they have in the kitchen and the app can give them recipe ideas. Anything that a person trying to get healthy could utilize during the process would be the perfect opportunity for your brand to be noticed. I check my MyFitnessPal app everyday, and wouldn’t hate it if another app like that could help me during my health kick.
I think you guys are best known for your granola bars—but your cereal is getting up there. In order to compete with already prominent “healthy” cereals like Special K, Cheerios, and Raison Bran you need to try to be the prominent “health” brand. Honestly, I don’t think your television commercials are doing your brand justice. People need to know that Kashi is actually one of the greatest choices when it comes to healthy, great-tasting cereals. In order to get to a consumer like me, you’re going to need to let me know that somehow. When I’m at the grocery store, I wouldn’t hate getting a coupon texted to me for $1 off Kashi cereal (because price is probably one of the only reasons why I wouldn’t choose Kashi). Create a challenge for me similar to Special K’s two-week challenge. If you could tell me by eating your cereal everyday (or twice a day or whatever), that I could lose weight—Kashi would definitely stick out in my mind when I’m buying cereal. Pair that along with a microsite (or even use your Facebook page) to people who have done it and can’t stop raving about it—you’ll definitely be more prominent in my mind. Better yet, if I could even track and share my progress with friends, then your brand would rock even more. Then people’s stories would be the crowdsourced content, and you don’t even have to lift a finger.
So think about being that health partner I never knew I had. You can thank me later.
From Your Soon-To-Be #1 Fan,
Alyssa