Once, on a visit to Belgium, a Campbell’s Soup Company executive visited a local chocolatier, and fell in love with their confections. Believing these would also tickle palates back home, a deal was arranged.
Godiva Chocolatier was now poised for its introduction to the United States market.
But … how?
At one of Campbell’s advertising agencies, the task landed on my desk.
Two major players dominated the domestic consumer-chocolate market. The upper strata were served by a handful of established niche chocolate makers, like See’s, Edith M and Russell Stover. Godiva was certainly upscale – but where would it find its market share?
We were briefed that this Belgian chocolate was the best in the world. Well, okay, but since every product makes that claim in some form, it falls on deaf ears.
There’s no question that sampling is one of the most effective ways to sell food. But distributing Godiva samples would take too long, be much too expensive, and spoil the launch surprise.
Instead of taking the candy to the people, we needed people to come to the candy. People are curious. So we created the tagline: “Probably the finest chocolates in the world.”
That single word “probably” created not only doubt, but the curiosity we sought – it might in fact not be the finest chocolate in the world, but now interested parties had to go find out for themselves. And discover for themselves that indeed Godiva was pretty darn excellent.
The second strategy level was this: the rarer a thing is, the more it’s desired. This is why gold, diamonds, Rickenbacker guitars and Kobe Strip Steaks are priced high. So although there was enough inventory to go around, we began by making Godiva hard to get.
Not hard to find. Hard to get.
Setting the stage … and the hook
Elegant and enchanting refrigerated kiosks were built and placed in exclusive department stores and boutiques around New York City, staffed by equally elegant and enchanting young gentlemen and ladies. They were instructed to sell no more than one single unit of any item to a customer … although selling one large Golden Ballotin, one small Golden Ballotin, and one truffle to a single customer did not break the rule.
If I remember correctly (and I may not) we launched near Christmas.
The New York Times covers all of Greater New York, including Fairfield County in Connecticut and Bergen County in New Jersey, so that’s where our ads were seen. Along with a blitz of PR coverage. No TV yet.
These delicious confections from Belgium – “probably the finest chocolates in the world” – were now available in limited quantities to the discerning few, at a small number of select locations.
The hook was set.
“The discerning few,” of course, included anyone at all who wanted a uniquely elegant and delicious gift or who simply enjoyed fine chocolate themselves. Of course they could – and some did – make their limited purchase, wander off for a few minutes, return to the line and make another one.
The lines? They snaked through stores to the Godiva kiosks for weeks. It was only after two or three months that distribution went wider.
We had disrupted the market. It wasn’t long before Godiva was on everyone’s lips, figuratively and literally. Soon the brand went national – at first a luxury brand that is now sold with little loss of cachet, oddly enough, even in convenience stores and truck stops.
My time with the campaign was done after the launch; I left the agency and moved on to other excitements.
In 2007, deciding Godiva no longer fit their brand profile, Campbell’s sold the company to Yildiz Holdings in Turkey, one of the world’s largest industrial conglomerates.
TAKEAWAY:
TV Programming genius Brandon Tartikoff developed the concept of “counter-programming” … creating a new paradigm rather than following the crowd.
In this case, when elegant candies were commonly advertised with pictures of ladies in golden gowns and gentlemen in tuxedos, we created something arrestingly different for the same gala-opening-night audience.