Although Folgers remains the top-selling U.S. coffee brand, the influence of Starbucks and other specialty rivals in recent years has presented a challenge to legacy names.
“It’s safe to say there are other brands out there, including the one on every corner, that has shifted the way we think about coffee. It’s not just a commodity anymore,” Roberts said. “When we were younger, we just drank whatever was in the pot. Today we know what mountains the beans were grown on. It’s definitely become a more craft-focused, artisanal experience, even at the mass level, even at a McCafé level. Our vocabulary has expanded so much when it comes to coffee.”
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Folgers can speak this language too, Roberts argued. “We have master cuppers, and best-in-class craft as far as how the coffee is prepared, but we’d never shared that part of the story before.”
At the same time, the company’s research indicated that consumers feel 'Folgers is not for me,’” Geoff Tanner, chief commercial and marketing officer Smucker, said in a release. “In a competitive category that has dismissed the brand and labeled Folgers as their grandma’s coffee, we’re shaking things up by boldly choosing to overtly acknowledge any negative misperceptions and then loudly and proudly challenge them.”
A series of four 15-second spots directly address various misconceptions about the brand—including that it’s strictly for older consumers. “Think of us as your grandma’s coffee? Heck, yes we are,” a voiceover says as cameras reveal a hip grandma in red-framed eyeglasses and a worn denim jacket, “and 35 million more with equally excellent taste.”
The campaign will be deployed across TV, online video and streaming audio channels and supported with a social media campaign that will involve influencers and a hashtag, #Damnrightitsfolgers, that officials are confident will garner attention.
The J.M. Smucker Co. has been in charge Folgers' marketing for more than a dozen years, having paid $3 billion to buy it from Procter & Gamble in 2008. Sales of Smucker's retail coffee brands, which include the Café Bustelo and Dunkin’ brands, rose 2% to nearly $1.19 billion in the first six months of fiscal 2022. It was Smucker’s most profitable business segment, though profit for the unit declined 7% in the first half of the fiscal year.
PSOne is a division of Publicis that works exclusively with Smucker’s brands including kitchen stalwarts like Jif and Meow Mix that have also exhibited ambitions to market beyond choosy moms under new campaigns. One key to making it work is a tight bond between the brand and its marketers, Roberts said. “You can’t tell where one of our company ends and the other begins.”
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