• by Steve Ellwanger , September 4, 2019

As school and fall activities ramp up, Nutella is spreading the word that Saturdays and Sundays are for relaxed family breakfasts at home with a year-long campaign, “Your Weekend Deserves Nutella,” that launched this week.

The effort began with a 30-second television spot that explains how the hazelnut cocoa spread goes with foods like pancakes, bananas, toast and waffles, plus sleeping in and “all the special things that make the weekend the weekend.”

“The historic aspect of Nutella is, it’s always been a staple breakfast item globally,” Shahrukh Mehta, brand marketing director for Nutella USA at Ferrero, tells Marketing Daily. “Nutella is still building its breakfast equity in the U.S.”

Nutella’s core consumer target is moms, 56% of whom feel less time pressure on the weekends than on weekdays, according to research that underpins the campaign. “Through our segmentation studies, we also found that weekend breakfasts are  44% longer than non-weekend breakfasts,” Mehta says.

In addition to TV buys that include Food Network, Hallmark, HGTV, Lifetime, Cooking Channel and MTV,  the campaign will rely heavily on social media, where Nutella will engage with consumers with various calls to action. Within the next two weeks, consumers will be encouraged to “share with us more about their weekend breakfasts, and it will give life to all types of rewards,” Mehta adds.

In addition, Nutella will be partnering with “very large American breakfast brands” during the campaign, similar to how it has worked in the past with grain-based offerings like Eggo and Bimbo Bakeries. “The key point of those partnerships is to show how well Nutella goes with other American household breakfast staples,” says Mehta, declining to disclose the identities of the new partners.

“You’re going to see different things throughout the year that all link back to the organizing idea of the weekend breakfast and how special the weekend is for our consumers,” Mehta adds.

The campaign creative is from the Terri & Sandy agency, while media is being handled by PHD.