Dive Brief:
- Paramount Citrus will spend $20 million on a marketing and advertising campaign this season as it tries to build buzz for its Wonderful Halos brand of mandarins.
- The marketing spend comes just one year after Paramount debuted the Wonderful Halos brand after surrendering control of the Cuties brand name to former business partner Sun Pacific Marketing Cooperative.
- Paramount has pledged to spend $100 million on brand development, which the company says would be the most ever spent on a branding campaign for fresh produce.
Dive Insight:
In the food business, few things are as rare as a recognized brand name in fresh produce. For every Sunkist orange, there a million nameless apples, anonymous heads of broccoli, and an endless number of brand names recognized only by industry insiders, even when they are important and historic brands.
That's what made the Cuties brand so interesting. Suddenly seedless mandarins, an enormously convenient food beloved by parents, were known as something more than a simple commodity fruit. Time will tell if Paramount can pull that off a second time.