• by Aaron Baar , March 9, 2009

With more than a dozen lines of products using its name, Quaker Oats Company--itself a division of PepsiCo--is uniting all of its products under one tagline, with an image of the iconic Quaker Man image to back it up.

"We have a great family of products," Quaker Oats chief marketing officer Annie Young-Scrivner tells Marketing Daily. "We just haven't been talking to our consumers with one voice."

The effort--which begins in earnest on March 16 with television, print, online and out-of-home advertising--is the first time that all of the products have been united under a single tagline in the company's 130-year history. The tagline "Go humans go" is intended to evoke the oats as a "super grain" that helps power people's minds and bodies, Young-Scrivner says.

Teaser ads, featuring the company's Quaker icon (which Young-Scrivner says has about 100% household recall) and the tagline have been running in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. since February. The ads, breaking next week, were unavailable for viewing on Monday; however, an image on the company's Web site (and referenced by Young-Scrivner) depicts a man flying a jet pack in which the exhaust tubes are the company's iconic oats canisters. Television commercials will prominently feature the Quaker character from the packaging and the entire portfolio of products--from the Old Fashioned Oats to granola bars and cereals, Young-Scrivner says.

In addition to the television and print campaign via Omnicom's Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, the company will also use social marketing, digital and public relations efforts to promote the products, she says.

Oats have been the subject of health-oriented marketing for a few years, particularly as a way to reduce cholesterol. General Mills' Cheerios cereal has been running commercials suggesting that people can lower their cholesterol by eating the cereal for six weeks. Quaker has also showcased entire towns that took it upon themselves to lower their cholesterol by eating oatmeal.

The new campaign goes a step further, however, by showcasing the breadth of products under the company's umbrella, Young-Scrivner says, adding: "It allows consumers to understand that we do have different offerings that all contain Quaker oats. It's not just the oats in the canister."

The marketing campaign also includes an extensive social responsibility component in partnership with Share Our Strength. For every UPC code entered at www.quakeroats.com/gohumansgo, the company will donate 10 food items to Share Our Strength. In addition, it is offering 100 "Go Grants" of $500 to people to develop community projects to end hunger. "We've always been involved with hunger-related causes," Young-Scrivner says. "We just haven't talked about it."