Advertising Effectiveness Awards 1984 Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, 44 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8QS, UK Tel: +44 (0)171 235 7020 Fax: +44 (0)171 245 9904 Agency: Leo Burnett Author: Mo Fisher Curly Wurly: The Effect of an Advertising Relaunch MARKET BACKGROUND Curly Wurly was launched in 1971 as part of a new product development programme jointly carried out by Cadbury Ltd and one of its advertising agencies, Leo Burnett Ltd. The product is a squiggly bar of toffee enrobed in Cadbury's milk chocolate. It was positioned in the self-purchase children's confectionery market with a primary target market of children aged 5 11 years old. Up to five years of age the majority of confectionery purchasing is supervised and paid for by an adult, usually the mother. When the child is aged 5 8 adult influence decreases and older children aged 9 11 have virtual total freedom as to what items they buy. Confectionery, savoury snacks and soft drinks all compete for pocket money spending. Within confectionery the brand is in competition with a diverse range of products from Mars bars to 'penny tray' items. ADVERTISING BACKGROUND The launch advertising had featured Terry Scott as a schoolboy with the theme 'Outchews everything for 2½p'. This advertising was very successful in generating awareness and trial. We found, however, that mothers somewhat disapproved of the product because they perceived it as being messy: bits of chocolate fell off the bar when it was bitten into. Therefore, we were in danger of having a Cadbury product which mothers positively discouraged their children from purchasing and consuming. The product was changed slightly to alleviate this problem and this change was communicated to children and mothers, again using Terry Scott and retaining the launch commercial's humour and fun. We found subsequently that the apologetic nature of this advertising had not motivated parents to condone children's purchasing and children felt that their Curly Wurly which they had known and loved had changed, not necessarily for the better. THE PROBLEM After five years without much marketing activity and without advertising, a review of Curly Wurly was conducted in 1981. Although sales were steady, they were at a very low level. Also the competitive environment had changed. Other chewy bars were more prominent such as Toffo and Texan, with the latter's manufacturer spending money behind the brand. It was decided to conduct some qualitative research amongst our target market to find out the current status of Curly Wurly. The findings of this research highlighted our problem. Curly Wurly was seen as a very low-status confectionery product rather than a higher profile countline alongside products such as Mars bars, etc. It also had numerous other problems:
low level of awareness; often a countline substitute; descriptive vocabulary of the product had declined; lack of image which led to lack of competitive edge; mothers rather than children were buying: there was no strong appeal to children; there was virtually no advertising recall. It was hypothesised that these problems arose because of a lack of advertising support. Advertising had, and could again, communicate the nature of the product and its highly competitive price. Of our target market now aged 5 11 the vast majority would not have been aware of our last advertising. We noted, however, that the brand was still selling moderately well with all these problems and no advertising support. This meant that a relaunch should be able to inject new life into Curly Wurly by motivating our new target market. THE RELAUNCH The strategy After extensive work on Curly Wurly it was decided to leave the advertising strategy virtually unchanged from the launch strategy. The role of advertising To make our prime target market aware of Curly Wurly. Advertising task To re-establish Curly Wurly as the long-lasting chocolate-covered bar for children which offers real value for money. Target audience Again defined as 5- to 11-year-olds with a bias to 5- to 8-year-olds. Our secondary target market was their mothers. Advertising brief The brief can be summarised as to create advertising which would be involving and humorous to children but which would not alienate mothers. Competitive positioning The best-value chewy bar you can buy. Rationale 1. Children perceive the main benefits as value and long-lastingness, ie length of chew. 2. Curly Wurly is covered in Cadbury's milk chocolate. 3. Curly Wurly costs only 10p. Proposition Curly Wurly is so chewy that it lasts and lasts and it only costs 10p.
Executional guidelines ensure long-lastingness is communicated; ensure price is included; Cadbury name to be included. Communication of delicious has not been included because to children all confectionery, especially chocolate confectionery, is delicious. Media choice Funds were made available for a relaunch in 1982. The media budget was small by confectionery market standards: including production the advertising spend was less than 500,000. Our media objectives were defined as follows: 1. To advertise the brand nationally and re-establish it as a major children's sweet. 2. To commence advertising early in 1982 and to maintain effective presence as long as affordable. Based on these criteria, TV and cinema were selected as the most appropriate media to relaunch the brand. TV would enable us to quickly re-establish Curly Wurly as part of children's confectionery repertoire and cinema would allow us to add impact and to provide continuity of presence at key times of the year such as school holidays, etc. The media plan TV: Burst: February to March, 175 TVRs Drip: April to June, 250 TVRs Cinema: April to December (school holidays only) Advertising development The development of children's advertising is fraught with problems, particularly when humour is intended. What appeals to a 5-year-old can be seen as being very childish and thus a turn-off for a 9- year-old. The creative group came up with two executions based on the idea that if a Curly Wurly was straightened out it would be 21 inches long and provide a much longer chew for 10p. In one execution 'Going Metric' a comparison was made between a 21-inch long Curly Wurly and a 533 mm long Curly Wurly, both obviously being the same length. The other execution 'Scared Stiff' was based on the idea of frightening the Curly Wurly so it would straighten out to 21 inches. These ideas were put into qualitative research in animatic form and exposed to children aged 6 11 years old. Children under 6 were excluded because they are a little too young to use in research. It was found that both executions had strong appeal and involvement across the whole sample of children. They responded straight away to the humour, both verbal and physical. We found, however, that there was a major problem using product length as our USP (unique selling proposition). The children we spoke to had a poor grasp of numbers and length measurement and very little familiarity with inches. Also, Curly Wurly was seen by them as a bar with holes punched in it rather than a squiggled-up strip. This was also consonant with the way they ate the product which bore no relation to the length idea. The creative group was rebriefed and came up with a new idea based on the thought that a Curly
Wurly was so chewy and lasted so long that when you were eating it you could not talk for ages. The execution consisted of a moose and a young boy sitting on a bench. The moose is trying to get the boy to tell everybody about Curly Wurly that it is chewy, long-lasting and only costs 10p. The boy cannot talk because he is chewing his Curly Wurly. The idea is that Curly Wurly is 'too chewy for words'. The idea in animatic form was again researched among our target market. We were well aware that it was all too easy to get it wrong, therefore further research was felt to be necessary. The idea researched very well indeed and we found that the moose was potentially a very strong and original branding device for Curly Wurly. He evoked a very positive response among children and his character was sufficiently complex and engaging to provide the basis for extensive use in relation to the product. He had appeal across a broad age range which was very important. We learnt also that, because of the static scenario, the right kind of body language between the moose and the boy was crucial and this was where the appeal to children lay. Following this research minor changes were made to the script which was then shot and aired in 1982. EVALUATION OF THE RELAUNCH We had two types of measures to evaluate the effects of the relaunch. These were: 1. AGB Personal Purchasing Index (PPI), a weekly diary panel of 10,000 individuals aged 5 65 years old. 2. A specially designed tracking study conducted by Cocks Williamson Associates in three stages. The sample for each stage was 200 boys and girls aged 7 11 years old, BC1C2, split North and South. The three stages were: pre-advertising: 18 30 January 1982 post-burst: 22 31 March 1982 post-burst & drip: 8 17 June 1982 Sales PPI showed a dramatic sales effect. Throughout 1981 sales had been fairly steady, at about 3.4 million units per bi-month. In the first bi-month we advertised, the sales rise was 70%, in the next: 100% and for the rest of the year: 120%. Overall, sales more than doubled (see Table 1). Ex-factory data confirmed these figures. The increase among children was nearly 70%. It was larger, 150%, among adults, who mostly bought multi-packs of four bars. Purchasers TABLE 1: SALES (million units) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec 1981 3.1 3.6 3.3 3.8 3.6 3.3 1982 5.3 7.4 8.2 7.6 7.2 7.9 Source: PPI Penetration was also examined separately for children aged 5 to 12, and adults. The advertising started in February 1982. Table 2 shows this information. Not only had we persuaded more children
to buy the brand but we had motivated adults to buy for their children. Tracking study TABLE 2: PENETRATION (%) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec 1981 Children 12.1 12.8 10.8 16.1 13.8 14.5 Adults 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.8 1.6 1.3 1982 Children 15.5 20.8 23.8 20.0 20.8 20.3 Adults 2.0 3.1 3.8 2.6 2.3 2.0 Source: PPI The three stages of the children's tracking study gave the following results, which make it clear how the advertising worked. Spontaneous awareness of Curly Wurly increased throughout the three stages of the survey (see Table 3), with 99% of the sample claiming to have heard of Curly Wurly on prompting at the final stage of the survey. TABLE 3: SPONTANEOUS AWARENESS Curly Wurly % Pre-advertising 7 Post-burst 15 Post-burst and drip 24 Curly Wurly was rated the second most-liked product by children by the final stage. At the pre-stage it was rated in seventh position, (see Table 4). TABLE 4: LIKED MOST Curly Wurly % Pre-advertising 9 Post-burst 15 Post-burst and drip 16 Curly Wurly was rated the most fun and exciting brand by 45% of the sample. This was higher than for any other brand. Curly Wurly is now rated top as being the most long-lasting brand, as in Table 5. Prior to the advertising, Toffo and Mars were regarded as being more long-lasting products than Curly Wurly. TABLE 5: LONG-LASTINGNESS
Curly Wurly is the current leader in terms of being value for money (Mars used to be regarded as the best value for money brand), with 69% of the sample saying that the brand is good value. Curly Wurly has risen steadily on this measure across the three parts of the research (see Table 6). The spontaneous reasons played back for best value for money are its long-lastingness, its size, chewiness and price of 10p. TABLE 6: VALUE FOR MONEY Of the sample 76% spontaneously claimed that they had seen TV advertising for Curly Wurly. On further prompting this figure rose to 90% (see Table 7). TABLE 7: TV ADVERTISING AWARENESS The moose and the boy were the most frequently mentioned aspects of the commercial. The moose was mentioned by 78% of children and the same proportion mentioned the boy. Good value was mentioned by 39% of the sample. In terms of appeal the moose and humour were the most frequently mentioned aspects which were liked. There were no major dislikes about the advertising. The major preference attributed to Curly Wurly itself was the chewiness. Mentions of this attribute increased over the three stages of the research. All in all the advertising had considerable impact. In particular there were increases in positive attributes with decreases in negative attributes about the product. Awareness of and knowledge about the advertising was exceptionally high. Factors affecting sales Curly Wurly % Pre-advertising 28 Post-burst 33 Post-burst and drip 49 Pre-advertising 47% Post-burst 54% Post-burst and drip 69% spontaneous and spontaneous prompted % % Pre-advertising 7 7 Post-burst 52 70 Post-burst and drip 76 90 Since there was no change in the product, we have to look for possible causes of these successes during 1982 in pricing or distribution (the only other major factors), in addition to advertising. Firstly, in 1982 there was considerable activity in confectionery pricing. Larger bars, money off and other attractions resulted in an actual drop in countline average prices of 4%. This was against
general retail price rises that year of over 8%. Thus the background was that countlines looked considerably cheaper. Curly Wurly did not take part in this activity. Its bar price of 10p was unchanged. In 1981 this had been somewhat reduced by 7% in fact by some promotional pricing. The cut was less in 1982 the average retail price was only 2% below list. Thus price cannot have played a part in the sales rise. Secondly, certainly distribution rose in 1982 in grocers as well as confectioners, tobacconists and newsagents (CTNs). The only data available are shown in Tables 8 and 9. The rise was at best, from the data available, from 34% (average September to December 1981) to 49% (maximum observed) in 1982, or +44%, in grocers; it was from 48% to 66% or +38%, in CTNs. These are clearly less than the sales increases: throughput per outlet went up more than 50%. TABLE 8: IN-STOCK STERLING-WEIGHTED DISTRIBUTION (%) Grocers Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec % % % % % % 1981 N/A N/A N/A N/A 36 32 1982 42 46 49 N/A N/A N/A It must be arguable whether the distribution increase is a cause of sales, which is independent of advertising. It is our view that the gain in distribution was achieved with the help of advertising. It is one of the ways in which advertising works, to motivate and enthuse salesmen and retailers. The two work together and cannot be totally separated. TABLE 9: IN-STOCK STERLING-WEIGHTED DISTRIBUTION (%) CTNs Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec 1981 N/A N/A N/A N/A 50 46 1982 52 61 66 N/A N/A N/A Source: Nielsen Thirdly, profit figures cannot be revealed in detail, but it can be stated that this advertising definitely paid for itself. The way the calculations are done can be indicated by the following argument which uses conventional factors (ie not exact, but not misleading). PPI shows sales in 1982 increased by 22.9 million units, reaching a peak in the second bi-month after the relaunch but continuing at a high level for the next three (and actually for longer). We attribute this annual increase to the advertising. Since the pickup of PPI is about 70%, the actual increase was 32.7 million units (this order of size is confirmed by ex-factory sales). As already stated, the retail price of 10p was very little reduced in practice. Taking off a conventional 30% for retailer margin, the extra cash received was 2.29 million. Costs of production and distribution of the extra units sold have to be allowed for, but overheads like machinery, office staff and so on are hardly affected by such changes in volume. Suppose we conventionally allow 60% of the manufacturer's selling price for the marginal costs, or 1.37 million. This leaves 920,000 from which advertising costs have to be deducted before an additional profit is left. Since the advertising cost about half this it is clear that its investment was very sound.
CONCLUSION The advertising was very successful in creating awareness and generating trial, by communicating to a new target market the existence of the brand and its positive attributes. There is no doubt in our minds, or the client's, that advertising caused the sales increase in 1982. This increase raised more than enough additional profit to pay for the advertising. The main conclusion has to be, however, that even with a small number of OTS (opportunities to see), a brand can be restored to prominence, provided the advertising is striking and relevant. IPA, Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, London 1984 http://www.warc.com