Snapple shakes up its under-the-cap 'Real Facts' info-nuggets

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September 02, 2009

Snapple shakes up its under-the-cap 'Real Facts' info-nuggets

Snapple's marketing people have been dealing with a conundrum of late: How to update the brand without losing its essence? The solution is to pick and choose aspects of Snapple that make sense. So, out goes Wendy the Snapple Lady, but the company's under-the-cap "Real Facts" not only get a reboot, they now have the inevitable Web tie-in as well. Snapple, which is now owned by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group, introduced "Real Facts" in the late '90s. The idea, according to Bryan Mazur, vp of marketing, was to take a gulp of Snapple, read the cap and then relay the bit of info to the person next to them. A decade later, dedicated Snapple drinkers may have come upon many of the 672 "Real Facts" before (No. 1: "A goldfish's attention span is three seconds"), so Snapple is phasing out the old "Real Facts" in favor of new ones, which it will be unveiled every day on Facebook and Twitter. (No. 885: "Vultures can fly for six hours without flapping their wings.") You can't do any kind of marketing these days without some Facebook or Twitter component. It's a fact.

—Posted by Todd Wasserman

Published on September 2, 2009 | Permalink

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Snapple shakes up its under-the-cap 'Real Facts' info-nuggets

Snapple's marketing people have been dealing with a conundrum of late: How to update the brand without losing its essence? The solution is to pick and choose aspects of Snapple that make sense. So, out goes Wendy the Snapple Lady, but the company's under-the-cap "Real Facts" not only get a reboot, they now have the inevitable Web tie-in as well. Snapple, which is now owned by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group, introduced "Real Facts" in the late '90s. The idea, according to Bryan Mazur, vp of marketing, was to take a gulp of Snapple, read the cap and then relay the bit of info to the person next to them. A decade later, dedicated Snapple drinkers may have come upon many of the 672 "Real Facts" before (No. 1: "A goldfish's attention span is three seconds"), so Snapple is phasing out the old "Real Facts" in favor of new ones, which it will be unveiled every day on Facebook and Twitter. (No. 885: "Vultures can fly for six hours without flapping their wings.") You can't do any kind of marketing these days without some Facebook or Twitter component. It's a fact.

—Posted by Todd Wasserman

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via brandfreak.com

While brands need to constantly innovate to retain customer engagement a second thought should be considered when altering a "expected" within the product brand or of the physical product itself.

Snapple in its forward movement is phasing out the "Snapple Lady" where this character is part of the media mix consumers are used to "spokes people" changing and the "Snapple Lady" is not so closely identified as "Jack" is for Jack In The Box.but Snapple is also removing the in cap "Factoid" to move those factoids to online social venues such as Twitter & Facebook. The reasoning being is consumer attention span..

Snapple consumers are used to digesting the "Factoid" with a twist of the cap.
Snapple trained its consumer to look for the tid bit there , the consumers engagement happens within a matter of seconds. From a marketing prospective removing such a "Expected" is akin to Cracker Jack removing the in box surprise. Also this is a unique identifier and use of the cap and Snapple was the first to contain in cap facts.

"Attention span" reasoning by Snapples marketing is not only altering a "expected" by the consumer but also loosing a possible opportunity to marry the physical and virtual interaction of its consumer base.

Why? Not all consumers are connected at time of consumption, nor most likely a majority of Snapples market regular tweeters or facebookers (as much as we would like them to be) they are losing the immediate contact & engagement that has developed.

Instead of removing the message they should continue to engage their audience at every opportunity, don't remove channels of engagement just re-purpose them. to accommodate the new added channels
For example:
Run a twitter campaign, "Get A Lid On Your Tweet" run a contest to post a winning tweet on the inside of the lid (surrounding the lid w/ twitter id & fb page)

How about whats under the lid event, where consumers have to create a "made up story" with factoid sentences on the inside of the lid. Then post it to facebook to win? think "mad libs"

It will be interesting to see what happens with Snapples decision, hopfully they will reconsider removing the facts from inside the lid as I for one enjoy them, and from a marketing, engagement standpoint I think removing instead of using it int combination with their new direction is a huge missed opportunity.

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