Dairy products can be a hit with any audience—even an audience as choosy as teens—if those products fit the audience’s unique perspective, preferences and lifestyle, participants at the Dairy Management Inc.™ 2006 (DMI) Dairy Innovation Forum learned.
That’s because the possibilities for milk and the experiences it can deliver to different market segments are endless, said Stan Harris, chief marketing officer for Bravo! Foods International Corporation.
“Selling milk to teens is doable—and it’s fun,” Harris told his audience. In 2005, Harris helped Bravo! increase sales of its fortified milk products 600% through skillful marketing to young people.
Not milk but a beverage
The key, said Harris, to successfully reaching your target is to understand their world. Regarding Bravo!’s teen market, Harris pointed out how today’s teens differ from their parents. At a younger age, he said, they are more independent and techno-savvy, more open-minded and more accepting of authority. Many have grown up in single-parent or dual-income households. Their lives are faster-paced and more pressured than were their parents’ at the same age, he added.
However, Harris said that in some ways this generation is like teens since time began; that is, they don’t like to listen to their parents. Nor do they pay much attention to advertisers, he noted, inundated as they are with 300 to 400 commercial messages a day.
Given these attributes, Harris said he knew he’d need a different approach to help milk capture the imagination of teens. The first step for him was shifting his own point of view from thinking of milk as milk to thinking of milk as a beverage—one that offers kids an alternative to soft drinks and coffee.
“And you can sell beverages anywhere you want,” said Harris.
To put dairy in more places that teens frequent, Bravo! Foods began offering individual serving sizes of candy-flavored milk, bottled aseptically for a six-month shelf life, in vending machines and convenience stores.
Today, Bravo! sells two brands—Bravo! and Slammers™—and six product lines. Since teens think “milk is for kids,” said Harris, these 2% reduced fat milk-based beverages are positioned as “protein drinks,” “ultimate milk” and “milk with attitude.” The shrink-wrapped bottles feature strong graphics and photos of pro skateboarders or BMX bike champions. Some are enhanced with extra protein and vitamins.
Spreading the word in new ways
To get teens’ attention for your product, Harris urged following the “Six Laws of Teen Marketing.” These are:
D - Discover
E - Eliminate Old Thinking
V - Viral Marketing
I - It’s a Culture
N - No Selling
E - e-Marketing
For instance, to introduce teens to PROSlammers™, Bravo! did not advertise in conventional channels. Instead, the company was featured in a “Slammers High School Tour” that showcased skateboarding demonstrations. Athletes on the tour talked with kids about the importance of eating right and exercising while samples of PROSlammers™ were available for tasting. Another promotion targeted older teens. This contest promised a celebrity appearance at the proms of high schools that collected the most bottle caps from selected Bravo! products.
As a result of these efforts, Bravo! saw the number of product cases shipped in the United States jump from 100,000 to 600,000 from the first through the fourth quarter of 2005. Bravo!’s success demonstrates how carefully targeting a customer segment can effectively boost sales by addressing the unique preferences and lifestyle of that group.
This year’s Dairy Innovation Forum was the fourth annual by-invitation-only gathering hosted by DMI to foster innovative thinking in the dairy, food and beverage industries. More than 160 industry leaders took part in the event, held Feb. 7-8 in Scottsdale, Ariz.