Masterfoods has decided that the iconic brand has come to the end of an era and has announced a £7.5m revamp. It is overhauling its strategy to keep abreast of changing snacking habits.
Mars Bar is still the third biggest chocolate bar brand, but is struggling to maintain sales. According to AC Nielsen MMS, value sales fell by 6.8% in the year to February. At the same time, competition for the chocolate pound has become intense and Mars has had to contend with product launches such as Kit Kat Chunky.
Of course, Mars Bar has the advantage of a 70-year history to its name.
Its 'Work, Rest and Play' strapline, created in 1959, is one of the most famous advertising slogans of all time. More recent ads used 'Every day should be this good'.
But after dropping D'Arcy, its agency of 40 years, and hiring Grey Worldwide, from April 21 Mars Bar will be positioned as 'Pleasure you can't measure'.
Ads will focus on emotional rather than physical satisfaction in a bid to lure more women and younger people, who may have been alienated in the past by the brand's image as an energy-giving male snack.
One TV ad shows a man on a bus who is thrilled to be sitting opposite a stunning girl. He is even more ecstatic when she gets off and a more beautiful girl takes her place.The product itself will be repositioned as a pleasurable 'treat', with a modern, lighter typeface on the packaging and a drop in weight from 65g to 62.5g.
But is pleasure the key to revitalising sales and will it add long-term value to the brand? We asked Hugh Baillie, group business development director at Bartle Bogle Hegarty, who worked on the Maltesers and Galaxy accounts at Grey, and ex-Mars European marketing director Bob Morrison, now a partner at marketing agency Elephants Can't Jump.
DIAGNOSIS
Hugh Baillie
Being a good Scot, I prefer my Mars Bars as nature intended - deep-fried. Joking apart, it's one of the great brands I grew up with. Like millions of others, I bought 'helps you work, rest and play' and it enabled Mars to take the chocolate high ground in my childhood.
However, the world changes. There is increased competition for young people's money and in 1959 food was unambiguously a good thing. Now it's as much our enemy as our friend. Faced with this, the instinct can be to respond by changing everything about yourself, but I suspect that a big, solid brand such as Mars may find it hard to play this flirty, indulgent role.
I would suggest that maybe what's needed is a fresh interpretation of Mars' original promise. The extension to ice cream and the five mini bars-pack are based on a core product equity. Any change in communications should also be based on the core brand equity.
That equity is not an endline, but the original underlying promise of helping you through life. While our lives and the role of food have changed,'help' is an eternal need, and 'help' to get us through a busy life is more important than ever.
Bob Morrison
Mars is a national institution. As the NHS and Post Office are finding, this status does not make you exempt from the need to keep yourself competitive, relevant and appealing.
From my time on the Mars brand two years ago, all the key consumer measures highlighted the need for change.
Mars needed to be more approachable, and so this move is to be applauded.
The new packaging is the most visible change, and it looks great - bold and unmistakably Mars.
The company talks of product changes to make eating it a little lighter - again, a good thing as long as that magic first bite and the unique taste have been preserved.
The debate on endlines is academic. I don't believe that 'Pleasure you can't measure' will last, but in itself that doesn't matter. For one of the few genuinely iconic brands, it is a scandal that there has been no memorable Mars advertising for a number of years.
The challenge of the positioning and the associated endline is to stimulate and galvanise greater creativity. If it does, then it will be judged a success.
TREATMENT
Baillie's suggestions
- Revisit your roots, be proud, but become relevant by separating 'help', Mars' timeless role, from 'work, rest and play' - the more transient 'what' it delivers.
- Ask the questions 'what does it help me to do today?' and 'how does a big bar like Mars help me to do it?'.
- Launch a pre-packed deep-fried variant. Well, perhaps not.
Morrison's measures
- Create advertising that is famous and memorable.
- Use product and packaging innovation to reach those consumers for whom a regular Mars is just a bar too far.
- Use media and activity that gets Mars seen and noticed on the street.
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