All images courtesy of Droga Kolinska d.d./Atlantic Grupa & Publicis One Slovenia.Argeta, a pâté brand by Droga Kolinska d.d./Atlantic Grupa, was first introduced in 1957. Today, Argeta is the world’s largest producer of pâté – in part due to its successful marketing strategy and the sustained effectiveness of a single campaign.
In 2001, Argeta teamed up with agency partner Publicis One Slovenia to launch a new marketing strategy to build the brand and drive growth. Inspired by a metaphor for an iceberg, the team uncovered an insight that led them to make an emotional connection between the good side of life and Argeta spread, or “The Good Side of Bread.”
From 2001 to 2016, Argeta maintained a consistent communication strategy, shifting to accommodate changes in the market along the way, while “The Good Side of Bread” continued to exceed objectives for market share and sales, proving its effectiveness over a 15-year period.
Argeta, Droga Kolinska dd / Atlantic Grupa and Publicis One Slovenia took home Gold at the 2016 Effie Awards Slovenia Gala for demonstrating their sustained success with, “15 Years on the Good Side of Bread.” We asked Mojca Pesendorfer, Head of Marketing, Argeta at Atlantic Grupa, and Eva Šterk, Head of Strategic Planning at Publicis One Slovenia, to share their perspective on the Effie-winning work. Read on to learn how the team developed a strategy to support long-term growth, and what they learned along the way.
Tell us about your Effie-winning effort, “15 Years on the Good Side of Bread.” What were your objectives at the beginning?
MP & ES: Argeta, a savoury bread spread, is one of the strongest FMCG brands in Southeast Europe today, in fact the 5th strongest (Valicon, 2016). For comparison, according to Brand Finance, the fifth most powerful brand worldwide in 2017 is Visa, just to give an idea of what Argeta means in our region. However, 15 years ago, Argeta was at its beginning as a brand – even aided awareness was only 40%. It had no formed personality; people had nothing to say about the brand, neither bad nor good. It was a blank page. At the beginning, our objectives were therefore completely different than they are now; it was all about brand building, gaining awareness and gaining users through penetration.
What was your big idea? What was the insight that led to it?
MP & ES: In Slovenia, as well as in the broader Adriatic region, pâté carries a completely different connotation than, say, in other European countries. While it is a part of the gourmet culture in France, Slovenia and the surrounding region sees it in a totally different light. People love pâté; it represents an everyday choice, but it is often accompanied by prejudice (made from meat and fat leftovers).
The communication strategy has thus been based on the same insights for 15 years and can be illustrated with the iceberg metaphor:
– Above the surface there are the obvious threads of association: pâté comes in handy, it is tasty, but it is also not healthy and producers cannot be trusted.
– However, much more is hidden underneath the surface: the unbelievable richness of warm feelings and childhood memories. Pâté is an incredible comfort food and is inextricably linked to family and safety.
How did you bring the idea to life?
MP & ES: For the entire 15-year period, Argeta followed the strategy of the iceberg metaphor and spoke to the current challenges regarding the market, competition, retail, communications and the consumer. Argeta was always modern, active, forward-thinking, and looking on the bright side of life, and through this, it gained amazing amounts of relevance in the eye of changing food trends.
First, it established prominence by being different and animated, as well as by sporting a positive attitude toward the realm of emotions and consumer attention – the slogan “The good side of bread” was born.
In a market filled with prejudice and traditional players, Argeta wouldn’t be able to do so at the beginning of its rise to the top by putting emphasis on quality. After it had made a name for itself, it fought the competition and continuously proved its superior quality, being the only pâté that was not part of the meat processing industry. As it raised its appeal and tested new flavours and sub-brands, which was part of the strategy in this period, it retained the same tone of communication, a carefree spirit, and a positive outlook, but gradually dropped the animation of the brand, since it was no longer a challenger on the market and such radical difference was not adequate anymore.
While competitors relied solely on tradition, Argeta managed to turn immensely unfavourable category perceptions to its advantage. The period of expansion ended with the ultimate proof of quality – the first reality-based campaign, which let moms into the pâté factory – the strictest of quality assessors, who awarded Argeta with their stamp of approval.
What more can be done by a brand that consistently reached the highest growth rates and conquered the hearts of consumers? What followed was a period of building its Lovemark – where Argeta puts the feelings and emotions it fosters in the lives of its consumers before well-established rational reasons.
As the market changed over this 15-year period, how did Argeta’s marketing strategy evolve to support sustainable business growth?
MP & ES: In this 15-year period, everything changed; the market, competition, retail, communications and trends came and disappeared again. In five years after launching the “Good side of bread” communications platform, we managed to transform a rather unknown brand into an amazing brand that everybody knew, used frequently and found extremely likeable. Even though our starting approach brought us so much success, we knew at that point that we needed to change radically. In order to grow further we needed to aim for the number one position.
We started a more direct acquisition of main competitor’s customers, where a product quality-focused approach proved to deliver the best results. In this phase, we managed to strengthen both market positions and the brand itself immensely. In this period from 2002 to 2015, Argeta’s sales grew more than 350 % without radically increasing distribution. In a market that did not grow with such rate, it transformed from a low price-positioned brand to an absolutely price premium brand and conquered more than 40% of value market share. Clearly, this makes it harder to reach high growth levels now. However, we know exactly what an amazing asset our brand is – we focused on an extremely emotional approach, harvesting the goodwill that the brand has in the region, building loyalty among users in our traditional savory bread spread category and preparing the Argeta brand for a new life cycle spinoff.
But the fundamental nuts and bolts of our strategy actually never changed: Argeta was and is the most innovative, progressive, transparent, high-quality brand and product that is the absolute trend setter on the market.
What was your biggest challenge in bringing your idea to life? How were you able to overcome that challenge?
MP & ES: Throughout its existence, Argeta has faced different challenges, typical of the formation and maturation of any given brand. Prejudice toward the category itself and previously established traditional players were, however, the key challenges on the path to success of the brand, which Argeta consistently and thoughtfully tackled for 15 years. Argeta’s communications were always committed to one task: to differentiate Argeta from the rest of the pâté category. It has always had its own unique worldview, its own place beneath the sun, which provided it with ever new resources for growth, or the preservation and growth of the PPI (producer price index), even in times of recession.
What is the biggest learning you’ve taken away from this effort?
MP & ES: Argeta always stayed true to its basic brand purpose and never tried to follow the latest trend or tried to jump the gun. Maybe the most important learning that we have taken away is that timing and staying true to your own way are everything. It is not easy to grow a brand from the initial life-cycle stage to a lovemark in just 15 years. I think it required both: lots of knowledge, expertise, great leadership and farsightedness, as well as gut feeling to know when to make strategy shifts and how radical they should be.
Is there anything else we should know about “15 Years on the Good Side of Bread?”
MP & ES: Maybe the most important thing is that in the demanding pace of quarterly results, Argeta is proof that long-term thinking and a clear vision brings amazing results and above-average ROI.
