KROGER CHEESE | Case study

Rebrand Strategy

CHALLENGE

A leading grocery store chain with 2,000+ locations decided to update its entire house brand cheese line based on the recommendation of Kennedy Creative. This cheese category is represented by over 1,000 SKUs across several store chains. By updating the brand line the client wanted to address concerns that customer confusion may have been affecting sales in a category worth about $5 billion in the U.S. Kennedy Creative was tasked to perform a category and brand audit then determine solutions for improve the shopping experience including brand recognition, customer acquisition, and brand information hierarchy.

STRATEGIC SOLUTION

• Brand audit and ratings revealed messaging deficiencies in identifying brand hierarchy and product attributes.

• Packaging redesign included brand identity rejuvenation with distinct brand imaging and package messaging.

• Decision tree plan featured information architecture, group hierarchy arrangement, messaging and color coding.

RESULT

The multi-month project completely overhauled the cheese category with new brand identity, style guides, information architecture structure, segmentation, planograms and brand grouping strategy that was primarily focused on collected retail behavior data. The brand shopping experience was simplified and more sensible with a combination of merchandising layout, brand group ordering, package color coding, and clear attribute messaging. The new brand profile reduced the number of decisions customers needed to find the product they wanted from 5 down to 2 steps, and sales increased 8% the first year. Kennedy Creative’s brand profile strategy is still impacting sales 9 years after the re-launch as this national chain, even after a few re-imaging periods, continues to incorporate the original information architecture structure and brand grouping method across the entire category.