Brand Research - SWOT analysis

www.goodmanfielder.co.nz

Ernest Adams is New Zealand's leading sweet-baked brand offering consumers a range of delicious baked goods available through grocery outlets.

As New Zealand's favorite bakery brand it provides delicious sweet alternatives to baking with ready made cakes, desserts and Christmas baking. The range includes slices, loaves, cookies, éclairs, brandy snaps, meringues, profiteroles, cakes, sponges, puddings and tarts.

Ernest Adams established a New Zealand baking business in the 1920s. English-born Adams came from a family of bakers who immigrated to Australia and where under his father's name, Herbert Adams is a large Australian food company

http://www.arnotts.co.nz/our-products/products/farmbake.aspx

"Arnott's is committed to providing consumers with a choice of products that contribute to their physical and emotional wellbeing."

"Snacking is an important part of our daily routine, providing eating enjoyment and essential nutrients for our bodies. As our lives are now busier than ever, it's not surprising that snacking is on the increase. Arnott's provide a great range of snacks to choose from, and it's made easier with single serve and handy pack formats that can be eaten 'on the go'."

Arnott's Farmbake:

Farmbake's packaging has neutral, natural colours with wooden and burlap textures. The colours and textures give the packaging a rustic and homely feel.

The imagery is of stacked, broken biscuits surrounded by wheat and chunks of chocolate. The biscuits are arranged in a way that looks like they have been chucked casually on the wooden bench, giving a home made feel. The surrounding ingredients are reflective of the actual ingredients of the biscuits, the first ingredient listed being wheat flour and the flavour being chocolate. Also, the wheat and the chocolate chunks enhance the rustic, hap-hazard, farm style brand.

The sketch drawing as part of the logo shows a nostalgic aspect with the cottage and hills in the background, also directly referring to farmland.

The stamp that says "there is no substitute for quality" reminds the buyer that the biscuits are quality, and it adds to the nostalgia and home made feelings.

The back of the package is more simple to allow for a more informational design. 

It states the Farmbake brand and the flavour at the top. 

In the left column is; nutritional information, ingredients (English, french, and another language), a large space for best before date and the Net Weight.

In the right column states; the Arnotts brand, "made with care by: Arnott's biscuits Ltd", street address, contact information, website urls, "made in Australia", trademarks, and store information.

Bottom right corner includes; barcode, "exporting to the world" logo, "be green" logo, recycling information.

S:  Use of farm style baking and rustic style

     Clear display of ingredients (imagery and chart)

     The brand is balancing the treat/heathy tension very well

     Price Point is perfectly sitting just above average to make the consumer feel that they are buying a quality product at a good price

     

W: Possibly the use of imagery would be better utilised with a more stylistic approach

    

O: The brand has the opportunity to really push the indulgence of the cookies and go against the health food trend when it becomes too crowded, or to push the healthiness of the cookies and go with the trend

    

T: The rustic farm style could be something that becomes unappealing in the future

Ernest Adams:

The colours on the Ernest Adams packaging are bright, McDonalds colours with a few brown sections to match the chocolate chips. Perhaps the reason for the colours is that it's eye-catching on the shelf, and seems to reflect convenience and they also could be referencing old style baking.

The imagery is of a tin over-flowing with cooking, resting on a plaid tea towel with a glass of milk in the background. The choice to display the cookies in a tin would be a reference to home-style biscuits and sharable biscuits. The glass of milk is a 'serving suggestion', I guess to suggest that the cookies could be a ritual, afternoon tea snack.

The banner at the top of the packaging are both very classic looking, and very simple. The typeface is quite plain, but classic looking.

The stamp on the top left states that the product is "proudly baked in NZ" which is a great park of the Ernest Adams brand, and could be much more significant in the packaging to gain the emotional response from kiwi people.

The back of the package has a little explanation of the brand, this is something else that could be more significant in the packaging, again evoking an emotional response in buyers. There is also an explanation of the flavour of the biscuits, short and possibly redundant.

The left column of the back shows; a list of ingredients, nutritional information, barcode, DI info, and a best before date.

The right column contains; "tastes just like home baked", company guarantee, store information, "made in new zealand from imported and local ingredients", goodman fielder logo, contact info.

S:  The cookies look home baked with the tea towel and the tin

     The stamp shows that this is a NZ product

W: The colour of yellow is quite fake looking and unappealing during the trend of natural products

     The product could be marketed more towards New Zealanders

     The price point is directly medium, could go either way to make the buyer feel that they are either getting a good deal or a good product

     The imagery on the packaging doesn't create an emotional response

     The bag on the shelf looks much smaller than other bags

    

O: They have an opportunity to become an established kiwi brand

     They could make the price point more significant

     They could push the bakery style and become a real 'bakery made' product

    

T:  They have positioned themselves in a very crowded part of the market, so many brands have the power to take market from them

     They are very lightly responding to a 'home baked' trend, so the fact that there is no trend strongly backing them means that their audience is going to go elsewhere.

Comparison:

The Farmbake bag definitely stands out on the shelf, despite the bright colours of the Ernest Adams packaging. Perhaps this is because the Farmbake brand has many different flavour options and covers a much larger area of the  supermarket shelves. Farmbake is placed next to CookieTime cookies, and Ernest Adams is placed next to home brand biscuits.

The packaging is exactly the same weight, but the farmbake bag is much larger, and looks fuller. This makes the product seem more sharable, and everyday.

On the shelf, the rustic colours and home-made style really stand out as appealing. The red and yellow packaging of Ernest Adams looks more budget, but not as budget as the home brand biscuits.