Walkers Oven Baked – Deliciously Baked for 50% Less Fat
1. What is the observed insight?
The majority of consumers would like to adopt healthier diets, but face many barriers between their intent and their actual behaviour. Making huge changes to diets calls for investment of time, energy and often money. Food choices are primarily driven by the habit of supermarket shopping and a desire to reward ourselves and our families with tasty, familiar products we love.
2. The Nudge
In order to overcome the barriers for choosing healthier alternatives, PepsiCo created a programme of nudges to make it easier for consumers to try the Walkers Oven Baked crisps containing 50% less fat than regular crisps.
Research shows that consumers are rarely prepared to compromise on immediate enjoyment in favour of a long-term reward such as healthier weight. Consumers believe that healthier options must be less tasty, and have learned to associate health claims and packaging heuristics (for example a washed out colour palette) with a taste compromise. As healthier alternatives typically sell less than regular products, they are often allocated less attractive shelf space and less promotional display. They are also less visible to potential new shoppers who continue to buy the default big brands.
Our programme therefore contained two main efforts:
- Re-staging the Walkers Baked Brand: Introducing “Oven” into the brand name and using graphics and colours to showcase the “real food” ingredients and indicate deliciousness and naturalness. Re-launched with a major marketing campaign leading with “Delicious” to emphasise the gain rather than the anticipated loss of taste associated with the low fat claim. Anchoring the campaign to the Walkers Masterbrand, the flagship for taste, and by using the brand’s ambassador in the advertising.
- Re-framing the choice environment: In partnership with a leading retailer, creating a “Better For You Snacking” zone in the aisle hot-zone with highly impactful brand blocking and point of sale material to draw shoppers. Increased availability and visibility both in and out of the aisle, together with co-promotions allowing shoppers to buy their regular Walkers and also try the Oven Baked version at a discounted rate.
3. Evidence path
Sales of the Walkers Oven Baked brand increased by >50%, acquiring 2 million more shoppers. Within our partner retailer the category shifted 3 points of volume share towards the Better For You segment, improving the category volume weighted Nutrient Profile Model Score by 0.6 points. We delivered >35 million servings of Better For You crisps, removing >110 tonnes of fat from the category.
