Chapter 1, Problem 3CCS

KIND BARS FOR A KINDER WORLD

  Among the many energy and snack bars we have discussed, KIND (www.kindsnacks.com) stands out for its largely successful efforts to apply nearly every aspect of good marketing presented in this chapter. Its products offer substantial value by satisfying modern consumers’ needs and wants through an exchange. Its promotions are unique and compelling, and it has established its place on store shelves and through mobile channels. Furthermore, the company embraces a conscious marketing perspective, while also using its customer data to develop new innovations and promotions.

  Consider, to start, how KIND provides product solutions to satisfy customers. As a central corporate ethic, it asserts that people should not be forced to eat any ingredient that they cannot pronounce. It excludes artificial sweeteners and preservatives, so for modern consumers who embrace a healthy lifestyle, it markets a product that they can trust to contain only “natural” ingredients.³⁶

  As it has learned more about what consumers want, it also has expanded its product offerings. Beyond its initial snack bars, KIND now markets fruit snacks and protein bars. For these selections, its marketing remains consistent, promising more natural alternatives to conventional versions of these items.³⁷ The fruit snacks, which are vastly popular among children, contain no added sugars, preservatives, or genetically engineered ingredients, for example.

  To introduce such products to the market, KIND embraces diverse and clever promotional tools as well. To tout its fruit snacks, it installed a three-story-high mountain made up of 45,485 pounds of sugar in Times Square, along with statues of children made out of sugar. The mountain represented the added sugar that U.S. children consume every five minutes; each statue consisted of 64 pounds of sugar, or the average amount that an eight-year-old child consumes each year.³⁸

  To get people to try its new protein bar, KIND took a different tack because its target audience was different. Its extensive analysis of market data showed KIND that when people considered buying a protein bar or thought about switching brands, they often searched for phrases like “best tasting protein bar” or “protein bars that aren’t gross.”³⁹ So it developed a product based primarily on nuts, which it argues will always and inherently taste better than synthetic or processed food blends. Then it undertook a promotion designed primarily to get people to try its new product: It offered the first 10,000 visitors to its website who requested one a free KIND protein bar–as well as a bar from a competing company of their choice.⁴⁰ Thus the consumers received both a KIND Bar and, for example, a Clif Bar, and the company encouraged them to evaluate both options and post their reviews.

  But the online channel represents just one of the places that KIND has leveraged to market its protein bars. Soon after its online promotion, it hosted taste test events in various big cities across the United States, in which it similarly handed out samples of both its own and its competitors’ offerings. It described the promotion not as a way to sell more products, but rather as a route to help consumers learn about a better-tasting bar.

  Such espoused interest in consumers’ best outcomes is prominent throughout KIND’S marketing, which consciously embraces the company’s goal and responsibility to “make the world a little kinder.”⁴¹ It defines kindness (and thus its brand) as more active than simply being nice. To manifest this initiative, it supports various causes. The KIND Foundation granted awards worth approximately $1.1 million to seven people who acted in ways to improve their communities. The company’s CEO wrote a book, Do the KIND Thing, and all proceeds from the sales of that text are donated to kindness initiatives.⁴² The company also prints and issues #kindawesome cards, which it delegates its employees to hand out to random people they find engaging in kind action. The recipients receive special codes on the cards that allow them discounts on KIND products.

  These are not the only tactics it uses, though. First-time visitors to its website encounter a button they can click, inviting them to receive a discount on their first offer. In exchange for the price cut, they simply need to fill in their e-mail address–which of course means that KIND has gathered that information and can use it to track its sales and consumer preferences better, so that it can develop additional new products to meet those consumers’ needs and wants.

  And thus it comes full circle. By exemplifying nearly all the elements of marketing that this chapter describes. KIND is achieving success in a market that continues to grow, in competition with other brands that seek to establish their own positions in the marketplace.

Does KIND act in a socially responsible manner? Explain your answer.