• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, July 8, 2024

Kind is introducing its first ad campaign under chief marketing officer Osher Hoberman, who oversaw the attention-getting “You’re not you when you’re hungry” ads for Snickers. Themed “All Kinds of Good,” the effort reflects plenty of new thinking for the Mars-owned snack bar company, including different target consumers, a clarified sense of purpose and a healthy dose of humor. Hoberman tells Marketing Daily what strategic changes are baked into the new work.

Marketing Daily: This is a funny spot, with comedians Atsuko Okatsuka playing an awkward brain, and Eric Wareheim playing an equally awkward stomach, hooking up at an extraordinarily awkward school dance. Before telling us why you’ve gone the humor route again, update us on whom you’re trying to reach and why.

Osher Hoberman: I started in this role about nine months ago. I’ve been with Mars for 20 years, and I led the acquisition of the Kind business in 2017. The Kind brand is also about 20 years old but had lost its distinctiveness. I want to carve out a distinctive role that transcends healthy bars and pushes the brand further into healthy snacking. The strategy is that consumers should never have to choose between something that tastes good, feels good, and does good. We want to move the brand from being a healthy bar among many healthy bars to some very ownable consumer truth for the brand.

We also wanted a deeper understanding of what consumers want from their snacks, and we identified two cohorts. First, reliant parents -- younger, busy people who look to snacks as a nutritious hack for the family. They want convenience, nutrition and great taste, whether for school lunches or family road trips.

Second, we’ve got a group we call Young and Hungry: Gen Z and millennials. Most of their caloric intake comes from snacks versus main meals, and they look for snacks they can trust with functional enhancements. What threaded these two groups and all the other cohorts we looked at is this tension. They want to feel good and not worry. There is this constant tug of war that manifests itself in the  stomach, craving something delicious, and the brain, which is telling us that we should eat better.

Marketing Daily: And why is that so right for Kind, unlike other brands?

Hoberman: Most of our top-selling items have a touch of decadence or indulgence -- chocolate, a drizzle of caramel, and sometimes some peanut butter. They provide emotional enjoyment, and there are real ingredients, which are good for you.

Marketing Daily: That leads us to the dance between brain and stomach.

Hoberman: Yes. Getting there took multiple months, working with Energy BBDO. We played a bit with characters -- Mars has had great success with M&Ms, for example. And we’ve also brought interesting creative constructs to life with celebrities, as I've done in the past with Snickers. And these two comedians are so talented and endearingly awkward,

Marketing Daily: What’s the media plan?

Hoberman: It will run on TV and online, with a significant social buy on Meta, Snapchat and TikTok. We’re doing digital out-of-home for the first time and some audio on Spotify. We've got a branded integration with Seth Meyers, and some creative is running on retail media channels.

Marketing Daily: What metrics are you watching most closely?

Hoberman: I’d love to sell more Kind products. However, a key objective of this campaign is to grow the category. We owe it to our retail partners. We want to be great category advisors. For us, it's also about driving household penetration, recruiting new users and making sure the category is relevant for consumers. If we do that, we will win. Our retail partners will win. All boats will rise with the tide.

Marketing Daily: I’m curious. Some might say nine months is a long time to get your first campaign out there.

Hoberman: Yes. It took us longer because this brand has evolved uniquely compared to others in the Mars portfolio. It was founder-led for a long time, and like many of the insurgent brands of the past 15 years or so, the brand narrative was very much rooted in the founder. As they change hands -- in this case, to a multinational -- you need to carefully migrate from the founder story.

Then we became a very product-based brand, leaning heavily on ingredient profiles. And all points of distinction start to blur. And while we were a very purposeful brand, we weren’t purpose-led.

Marketing Daily: Explain that, please.

Hoberman: Kindness is so broad that it took the brand in many fragmented directions. Messaging was inconsistent and diluted. We expressed kindness with frontline workers, in underserved communities, and in geopolitical topics. It all ended up meaning very little to the consumer.

Marketing Daily: What will it mean to them now?

Hoberman: The campaign is called “All Kinds of Good,” not “Brain versus Stomach,” because going forward, we will be focused on our real food proposition. Nourishment helps communities thrive and people prosper, and not every community has the same access to the nourishment they need. We'll bring “Does Good” to life by providing delicious, nutrient-rich food and snacks to underserved communities across America. We’re super-proud of this.

Marketing Daily: This may sound cynical, but is focusing on hunger in underserved communities playing it safe? This is certainly a bad time for a large company to talk about being kind to people of color or the LGBTQ community. Were you feeling under fire when you decided to make hunger your singular purpose?

Hoberman: No, and I would argue I’m almost in blessed situation. The name of our business is Kind. It’s not our purpose but our belief system. It's how we behave, engage with consumers, and enroll our team members. That's how we refer to our employees. There is a role for us to play in kindness to every community.

Marketing Daily: It’s interesting to see this backlash against purpose after so many companies and their CMOs have invested heavily in inclusivity. One activist shareholder can threaten to sue, and companies have to decide whether to back off their commitments.

Hoberman: Yes, companies like Mars, with a global footprint, can find it particularly difficult to navigate. A set of constituents in one market may have one set of expectations for you, and those in a different geographic market may have different requirements. Staying true to your values and maintaining authenticity sometimes becomes difficult because of the varying geopolitical tensions and pressures. And Kind can’t divorce itself from that reality, because we are part of Mars.