• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, February 3, 2011

Nestlé's DiGiorno Pizza brand is currently rolling out two new combo products in stores: DiGiorno Pizza & Cookies and DiGiorno Pizza & Boneless Wyngz.

Both seem logical next moves for the brand, which certainly seems to have produced a hit with its first combo offering, DiGiorno Pizza & Breadsticks, introduced in late July 2010.

For that launch, Nestlé USA's press release made the product's head-on competition with pizza chains very clear: "Put the phone down, lose that pizza delivery number and check your freezer for new DiGiorno Pizza & Breadsticks ... the first-ever pizza and breadstick combination that America can bake up right from their own oven, saving time and effort." (At a suggested retail of $7.89, the price also seems competitive.)

If it makes sense to offer consumers the ability to bake breadstick dough at the same time that they're warming up the oven to bake a pizza, offering them "Wyngz" or Nestlé's Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough that can be prepared with or after a pizza also makes sense, at least from a marketing standpoint.

But for these launches, Nestlé seems to be taking an unusual tack. In mid-January, it announced on DiGiorno's Facebook page and Twitter account that the products would be in stores across the country starting Jan. 17, and asked fans/followers to provide feedback on them. In both cases, the messages were positioned as "sneak peeks just for you," even as it was noted that the products would be "arriving on store shelves across the country" within days.

Since then, there's been no sign of a press release (also not unheard of). More interesting, it appears that further marketing efforts have been limited to more posts from the brand about the new products on its social media channels, and using House Party to organize DiGiorno "Pizza & Hoops" parties. (The parties, to be held on March 19, will feature the two new combo products, in addition to the pizza/breadstick product -- an "all-star lineup that gives you double the reasons to skip delivery.")

Granted, these days, it's not all that remarkable for a brand to focus on or even confine its marketing efforts to social media in the initial stages of a launch. But when media inquiries are met with promises of more campaign info that never materialize, one has to wonder what, exactly, is up with this strategy.

To state the obvious, much as DiGiorno undoubtedly wants feedback on the products from its fans, huge, sophisticated food companies don't make the massive investment of producing and distributing new products all over the U.S. without doing consumer research. (Although, lord knows, many products fail despite positive research and/or market test results.)

Is DiGiorno's strategy to enhance loyalty among fans/existing customers by giving them "exclusive" news of these launches, counting on the inevitability that the cat will immediately be out of the bag? Human nature being what it is, might this "insider" approach be a clever, cost-efficient way to ensure that the news spreads even faster than usual?

Alas, we cannot provide answers at this time -- although this blog posting will no doubt contribute to the SEM/buzz effects already in progress.

In addition to the universally positive fan postings/tweets through the brand's social media, various food/fast-food/health blogs were on the case soon after DiGiorno's Jan. 14 Facebook post. (And after a Reddit user snapped a photo of the cookie/pizza combo he spotted in a store and posted it, Huffington Post duly republished the item.)

The comments on the brand's own channels enthusiastically praise the convenience of getting two favorites in one box, sometimes mentioning this as a "perfect" family solution and often asking for coupons. Those who've already tried the products are posting thumbs-up reviews. As usual, the commentary outside the brand channels is mixed -- some echoing brand fans' praise, others expressing dismay.

In the latter camp, Marissa Brassfield, posting on CalorieLab.com, noted that the "Wyngz" don't contain wing meat (the package clearly labels them white-meat chicken fritters), and pronounced this a case of "fake food branding."

"Predictably, the response [to the Facebook "sneak peak" announcement] was nothing but positive," Brassfield wrote. "In the eyes of its target market, the DiGiorno Pizza and Boneless Wyngz combo is a killer one-two punch that combines two favorite foods. For health-conscious folks, however, it's just the latest example of how food companies put profits ahead of producing nutritious products -- and how American consumers continue to eat it all up."

Clearly, in these days of controversy over nutrition and obesity, government initiatives and an increasingly polarized consumer universe, food product development and marketing can be akin to navigating a minefield.

Many food and beverage makers (and restaurant brands) are pushing to offer healthier but appealing options along with traditional favorites. We all know the challenges involved on this front. At the same time, a growing number of the majors -- Nestle being a prime case in point -- are making enormous investments in R&D facilities and initiatives specifically designed to harness science/pharma knowledge to produce healthier-but-tasty breakthroughs ranging from next-gen natural zero or low-cal sweeteners to new formulations of food staples incorporating marketable, health-enhancing properties.

So is it possible that DiGiorno's launch approach has something to do with this larger strategic scenario? Again, that would be sheer speculation, and perhaps reading far too much into a single, somewhat mysterious campaign for one brand within a huge corporate portfolio.

But DiGiorno aside, the increasingly apparent marketing dichotomies created as food manufacturers simultaneously focus on ensuring future growth through these health-oriented strategies and maintaining and growing sales within their traditional categories is undeniable.

And from a strictly marketing viewpoint, it will be interesting to see how all of this evolves. Might stealth marketing become the norm for any product that is not particularly low-calorie and might have some cheese or saturated fat in it? Might we begin seeing more QSR's toning down their usual mass-media approaches to marketing new items that are geared to consumers whose priorities are taste and serving size, rather than nutrition concerns? Stay tuned.