Dive Brief:
- ConAgra Foods' upcoming name change to Conagra Brands, announced in November, is considered by branding experts to be a sign of ConAgra's new strategy to revive the company, but many say the change won't matter much to consumers, the Omaha World-Herald reported.
- According to what these experts told the Omaha World-Herald, because ConAgra doesn't include its corporate name as part of individual brand names, many consumers don't associate ConAgra with products like Chef Boyardee or Hunt's, as compared to products like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. Also, ConAgra makes a wide variety of often unrelated products, from margarine to peanut butter, which makes it more difficult for consumers to tie ConAgra with those brands, unlike a company like Kellogg, which primarily makes breakfast foods, particularly cereals.
- Some experts feel the name change could be a negative for the company, as dropping "Foods" for "Brands" could disassociate ConAgra with the food industry, which could be confusing for consumers. The company could retain its tagline, "Food you love," to combat that problem, experts told the Omaha World-Herald, but ConAgra CEO Sean Connolly has confirmed only a new logo for 2016, not a new tagline.
Dive Insight:
This name change is happening as a result of the company's split into Conagra Brands and Lamb Weston, its attempt to combat profitability struggles affecting the industry. The top 25 U.S. food and beverage companies lost $18 billion in market share over the last five years, according to Fortune.
Alexander Chernev, professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, believes that the corporate name switch is directed at investors, corporate partners, and employees rather than consumers, the Omaha World-Herald reported. "What the corporate brand is supposed to communicate could be very different from what a retail brand would," Chernev told Omaha World-Herald.
Less apparent in the rebranding effort is the change from an uppercase to lowercase "a." As Connolly explained to a group of employees in Omaha last month, reported the Omaha World-Herald, the change is meant to de-emphasize the "ag" in place of consumer food brands without getting rid of the "ag" altogether. "If you look at what the consumer wants today, it’s from the earth," Connolly told emplyees. "It’s real."