Dive Brief:
- PepsiCo's Quaker is "in the process of exploring additional ad agencies to support 2016 Quaker Chewy [snack bars] work," a company spokesperson told Ad Age.
- Quaker's hot cereal and snack bars businesses have been handled by a single agency, EnergyBBDO, because the two categories were similar. However, while EnergyBBDO is continuing work on hot cereal, Quaker is reviewing the snack bars business.
- "Recently, however, Quaker has adopted a demand space driven approach to positioning and communications," according to the request for proposal. "With this shift, the Quaker Oatmeal and Quaker Chewy businesses now play in distinct demand spaces."
Dive Insight:
While Quaker's hot cereal and snack bars businesses do have similarities, as the snack industry continues to grow in the U.S., these two product categories may need different marketing strategies to appeal to the right demographics.
Quaker Chewy is the fourth-largest U.S. snack bar brand with a 6.6% market share and expected sales of $451 million for 2015, an increase over $433 million in 2014, per Euromonitor. Quaker Chewy now follows Kind bars at No. 3 with its sales expected to increase to $547 million this year, up from $391 million in 2014.
"The Quaker brand spent about $59 million on U.S. measured media in 2014, according to Kantar Media, including the hot cereal and snack bars," Ad Age reported.