How Northland
grabbed a market share from Ocean Spray 6/11/99 Mediaweek/Adweek writer Mira Schwirtz calls it "ground zero in the cranberry wars" in her May 24, 1999 article. Lakeville, Massachusetts? No, she's describing the tranquil Nekoosa West cranberry bog in central Wisconsin, where "the placid water reflects the clear blue sky and the changing colors of the surrounding trees" prior to fall harvest. Back in the autumn of 1997, the scenery gave no indication of the heated battle that Northland Cranberries was about to begin when the launched their "100% juice" advertising campaign aimed squarely at their only real rival in the $721 million cranberry juice market. Schwirtz compares the encounter to the story of David and Goliath, and in fact, by choosing a Milwaukee based advertising agency, Cramer-Krasselt, rather than going with the bigger ad agencies in Chicago and Detroit, or even Minneapolis, they were taking a risk. The hungry creative team at Cramer saw the Northland account as a way to prove their mettle in the dog-eat-dog world of advertising. Northland was investing a mere $7.8 million to roll out its product nationwide in 1997, a pittance when measured against Ocean Spray's $50 million advertising budget. According to the Mediaweek article, the initial goal was for Northland to garner a 10%, or $72 million share of the market. The team at Cramer analyzed Ocean Spray's media presence and determined that the cooperative largely ignored cable and daytime television, devoting most of their advertising to prime time. Cramer-Krasselt found that Ocean Spray was targeting the youth market, as well as the sports and fitness oriented consumers, and men - groups that represented a small percentage of supermarket shoppers where most cranberry juice products are sold. This seems to be a habit Ocean Spray continues with their recent hiring of teenage tennis star Martina Hingis as a spokeswoman for Ruby Red Grapefruit products. Cramer designed a campaign to economically narrow-focus television opportunities. The team developed a strategy which is described in the Mediaweek article as follows:
The essence of the media strategy was to use cable and daytime television to "grab the core purchaser" according to Cramer's senior vp and director of media operations, Greg Clausen. In what some might see as a high risk move, the agency decided to give Ocean Spray visibility by picturing their logo in the Northland ads, emphasizing that Ocean Spray was only 27% juice while Northland was 100% juice. Clausen, told Mediaweek "to a certain degree we were trying to take the mask off the Lone Ranger. We just recognized that we certainly couldn't outspend them. We had to outsmart them. " The rest, as all of us in the cranberry industry know, is advertising history. Northland got its toe, and then its foot, in the door and became known to many consumers as the "100% juice company". The success of their efforts exceeded initial expectations as they grabbed 14.9 percent of the market in the first year. This share of the market came mostly from Ocean Spray. Northland's success led Ocean Spray to launch its own failed Wellfleet Farms campaign, which cost upwards of $30 million compared to the much smaller Northland advertising outlay. Wellfleet Farms juice made a dent in Northland's market share, by about 5%, but did little to help Ocean Spray's fortunes. As for the little David that manage to put a stone square on the noggin of the giant Goliath, Cramer-Krasselt has been well rewarded. Last year they won accounts from household names Bird's Eye, Reddi-Whip and Egg Beaters. |