“Kellogg’s Mate”- Why it failed??

“You are what you eat”..is a belief what made Kellogg’s a must breakfast every morning. It was set up by brothers Will Keith Kellogg and Dr John Harvey Kellogg in year 1870’s. In 1876, while experimenting with different ways to cook and crush wheat to make it more palatable without losing its goodness, he inadvertently ran a batch of cooked wheat through the rollers that had been standing around for a day or so. And out of the other side came… Kellogg's Corn Flakes! (a prototype version)

Let’s look at one of biggest idea failure of Kellogg’s. This shows sometimes improper research and failure to understand consumers can be great problem to brand, however big it is.

If you are given choice to eat Kellogg’s Corn flakes, how you would like to eat it, by pouring refrigerators cold milk over cereal bowl, or eat it at room temperature’s warm milk and cereals? The company failed to understand the choice of consumers. They launched product Kellogg’s Mates – “all-in-one” breakfast package in year 1998 with a $30 million TV and print advertising campaign, with a view of accelerating trend of convenience foods, increasing in working hours in United States causing short of time to prepare breakfast quickly. Kellogg’s Mate was a concept in ‘kit form’ - a four oz. box of cereal, a four oz. container of aseptically packaged milk [no refrigeration required] and a plastic spoon. The line consisted of four popular Kellogg’s brands; Corn Flakes; Fruit Loops; Mini Wheats; and Frosted Flakes.

However, despite of great efforts by Kellogg’s, it failed to make position in minds of customer. Let’s look all the major factors of failure one by one as studied by various marketing professionals and journalist:

1.      Breakfast Mate used the concept of warm milk. It contained “aseptically packaged” milk which did‘t need refrigerator. Many Americans who have tried drinking aseptically packaged milk—something available in the U.S. from local and international dairy sources—have complained that it tastes "burnt."

2.      The product suggested keeping the container in refrigerator, since most of Americans pour cold milk over cereals when they serve. This lead to more confusion among consumers. Breakfast Mates was not in a location where you would generally expect to find breakfast cereal. The expense of trying to re-educate the consumer to look for cereal in the dairy case proved too enormous—way beyond, apparently, what Kellogg’s wanted to spend on selling the new line.

3.      TV commercials, ad showed how parents tell their small children to serve breakfast themselves by using of Breakfast Mates and let them “sleep in”. But packing of this product was too far from child-friendly, as many a time young hands squeeze the soft side of packing too hard, causing spill of liquid all over the table. Thus what ad was communicating to consumers was too different from actual situation.

4.      Breakfast Mate was portable packet to be used when one is out of his home. This can be kept in lunchbox, briefcase, brownbag, and desk drawer. But the problem was the milk get warm up at the ambient temperature. This caused the change in taste of milk.

5.      Breakfast mate was charged premium for convenience. Its retail price was in range from $1.39 to $1.69 depending on retail store. Consumers felt that was too expensive for what they perceive as a four. Oz. box of cereal.

After a one-year market exposure, the company announced that it was discontinuing Breakfast Mates in year 1999. Convenience, ease and a handy spoon isn’t everything it seems—not when you’ve got cold cereal and warm milk. A company should look at all dimensions while launching a new product, sometimes looking only at one particular parameter and overseeing others can be fatal.

Reference:

“Brand failures The truth about the 100 biggest branding mistakes of all time”- Matt Haig

www.kelloggs.com

http://www.mrbreakfast.com

                                                                                                 Dishti Naik

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