Greek Yogurt Touts Appeal of the ‘Real’ Thing

Chobani, the Greek yogurt brand that has enjoyed explosive growth, is opening wide its corporate wallet to rapidly expand a marketing initiative that began last month during the ABC broadcast of the Academy Awards.

The initiative, which carries the theme “Go real,” is expanding into realms that include print and digital advertisements; the brand’s Web site, chobani.com; and social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Chobani will spend about $30 million in the next eight to 10 weeks on the initiative, said Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of Chobani who is the company’s president and chief executive. One goal of the initiative i to promote Chobani as a “simple, pure food,” he added, and demonstrate that it is possible for a food maker to “leave food alone” and “keep it simple, keep it real.”

There is another goal, according to Mr. Ulukaya: to compare Chobani with the increasing number of Greek yogurt brands that are being introduced as Americans take to the product.

“A lot of people are coming into the category,” he said, “and we want consumers to understand what real Greek yogurt is” - i.e., Chobani.

By using the word “real” as a synonym for Chobani, the ads can go after the other Greek yogurts - as well as regular, non-Greek yogurts â€" without seeming too negative or like a political attack ad. Take, for instance, this headline: “Real is crafted, authentic and simple. Just like yogurt should be.”

Other examples include ads with headlines like these: “Real gives regular yogurts protein envy,” “Real is more filling, less filler”! and “Real makes simple ingredients taste simply indulgent.”

In social media, consumers are invited to use a hashtag for posts on Twitter, #tastereal, and “share your first taste of real” with friends and family.

The social media aspects of the campaign are being handled by Big Spaceship, an agency in Brooklyn. Boathouse, an agency in Boston, recently became the creative agency for Chobani, replacing the New York office of Leo Burnett, part of the Publicis Groupe.

“Chobani is not a company that talks at the customer,” said John Connors, chief executive at Boathouse. “It’s a conversation.”

The conversation includes letters, posts in social media, e-mails, photographs and other such communication from customers, Mr. Connors said, adding that the “Go real” theme was inspired by those messages. To reinforce the theme, he said, actual Chobani customers are appearing in the ad..

When Mr. Ulukaya discussed the casting, he declared the ads feature “real people, all of them.”

“Real horses and real dogs,” he added, laughing.

Chobani is by far the No. 1 brand in the Greek yogurt subset of the yogurt market, with more than twice the market share of the No. 2 brand, Dannon Greek yogurt.

Greek Yogurt Touts Appeal of the ‘Real’ Thing

Chobani, the Greek yogurt brand that has enjoyed explosive growth, is opening wide its corporate wallet to rapidly expand a marketing initiative that began last month during the ABC broadcast of the Academy Awards.

The initiative, which carries the theme “Go real,” is expanding into realms that include print and digital advertisements; the brand’s Web site, chobani.com; and social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Chobani will spend about $30 million in the next eight to 10 weeks on the initiative, said Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of Chobani who is the company’s president and chief executive. One goal of the initiative i to promote Chobani as a “simple, pure food,” he added, and demonstrate that it is possible for a food maker to “leave food alone” and “keep it simple, keep it real.”

There is another goal, according to Mr. Ulukaya: to compare Chobani with the increasing number of Greek yogurt brands that are being introduced as Americans take to the product.

“A lot of people are coming into the category,” he said, “and we want consumers to understand what real Greek yogurt is” - i.e., Chobani.

By using the word “real” as a synonym for Chobani, the ads can go after the other Greek yogurts - as well as regular, non-Greek yogurts â€" without seeming too negative or like a political attack ad. Take, for instance, this headline: “Real is crafted, authentic and simple. Just like yogurt should be.”

Other examples include ads with headlines like these: “Real gives regular yogurts protein envy,” “Real is more filling, less filler”! and “Real makes simple ingredients taste simply indulgent.”

In social media, consumers are invited to use a hashtag for posts on Twitter, #tastereal, and “share your first taste of real” with friends and family.

The social media aspects of the campaign are being handled by Big Spaceship, an agency in Brooklyn. Boathouse, an agency in Boston, recently became the creative agency for Chobani, replacing the New York office of Leo Burnett, part of the Publicis Groupe.

“Chobani is not a company that talks at the customer,” said John Connors, chief executive at Boathouse. “It’s a conversation.”

The conversation includes letters, posts in social media, e-mails, photographs and other such communication from customers, Mr. Connors said, adding that the “Go real” theme was inspired by those messages. To reinforce the theme, he said, actual Chobani customers are appearing in the ad..

When Mr. Ulukaya discussed the casting, he declared the ads feature “real people, all of them.”

“Real horses and real dogs,” he added, laughing.

Chobani is by far the No. 1 brand in the Greek yogurt subset of the yogurt market, with more than twice the market share of the No. 2 brand, Dannon Greek yogurt.

In Filing, News Corp. Says It Will Provide $2.6 Billion to Its New Publishing Company

News Corporation’s new publishing company will get an infusion of $2.6 billion in cash and will have no debt when it separates from the company’s higher-growth cable channels and Hollywood studio this summer.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company confirmed on Friday what analysts had expected: Rupert Murdoch will make sure his beloved trove of more than 100 newspapers will have plenty of capital once they are split off on their own.

The company will consist in the United States of strong newspapers, like The Wall Street Journal, and weaker ones like The New York Post, that will no longer have the security blanket of billions in revenue from entertainment assets like Fox News, FX and movies like “Avatar.” In an interview last summer, when News Corporation confirmed the split, Mr. Murdoch, the company’s chairman and chief executive, said his reporters should not feel like they have a “crutch” in the entertainment assets.

Instead, they will have safety net in the cash infusion announced Friday. The new company, which will retain the name News Corporation, will also include HarperCollins and a collection of lucrative Australian pay TV assets amounting to $18.6 billion in total assets, according to the S.E.C. filing.

Wunderman, Big WPP Agency, Gets a Major Makeover

Wunderman, one of the largest agencies inside the WPP agency holding company empire, is being overhauled to better respond, executives say, to the significant shifts in how marketers are seeking to reach consumers.

The changes include the reorganization of the more than 20 agency units of Wunderman into four worldwide divisions, specializing in tasks like helping marketers acquire, and keep, customers.

There are also several promotions and shifts among senior managers, as well as plans to fill a post that has been long vacant, that of global creative officer.

Wunderman, founded in 1958 by Lester Wunderman, who is still at the agency as chairman emeritus, was once a direct marketing agency, then was more recently recast as a specialist in the realms of digital and customer relationship management. The agency, which is part of the Young & Rubicam Group division of WPP, has revenue of more than $1 billion and more than 7,000 employees working at 170 offices in 60 countries.

The revampng is “all to respond to what we’re seeing in the market,” said Daniel Morel, chairman and chief executive at Wunderman, “on the digital side, especially.”

A primary goal is to “harmonize the offering” to clients, he added, and “make sure we don’t have six ways to do site improvement,” particularly after an acquisition spree in which Wunderman bought more than two dozen agencies and companies in the last 10 years.

The four new divisions of Wunderman will be:

• Wunderman Brand Experience, with a focus on customer acquisition through digital, mobile and other channels, to be led by Sam Landers as president and Martin Conneen as chief operating officer.
• Wunderman Consumer Engagement, with a focus on customer retention, including work in areas like social media, loyalty marketing and mobile marketing. Mr. Morel will lead this division in addition to his other duties while a president is being sought.
• Wunderman Data and Insights, with a focus on obt! aining data, managing data and deriving insights from data through methods like analytics. Gary Laben will serve as president of this division and continue as chief executive of the KBM Group unit of Wunderman.
• Wunderman World Health, with a focus on, as its name suggests, working for clients in fields like pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter remedies, health care and health insurance. Becky Chidester will be president of this division.

Other shifts involving senior managers include the formation of a nine-member executive board for Wunderman that expands and replaces an executive committee. Mr. Morel is naming two vice chairmen of the board: Gurval Caer, who is also chief marketing officer, and Stewart Pearson, who is also chief client officer.

As for the global creative officer to be brought in, Mr. Morel said, “Probably that person will come from a large advertising agency,” because of a need to find someone who has “an interest in using technology” yet also knows how to wo consumers with a pitch that “has to be sexy, has to be entertaining, has to be funny, has to be smart.”

The Breakfast Meeting: New Ways to Swap E-Content and Time Warner’s Spinoff Trend

Apple and Amazon, the two largest purveyors of digital media, are working to create a kind of online swap meet where consumers can exchange music, movies or e-books, David Streitfeld writes. Buyers basically rent iTunes songs or Kindle books under the current system, with no way to transfer the content. The exchanges would allow users to trade content without reproducing it â€" when a song is traded, it disappears from its original owner’s library. Publishers and music companies are against this kind of trading, as they believe it could devalue their products, while libraries, which have not been able to dispense e-books very openly, are generally in favor.

Jeffrey L. Bewkes, Time Warner’s chief executive, followed a long trend of paring back the media conglomerate with the announcement that it would spin off the magazine publishing arm Time Inc., Amy Chozick reports. The Time Inc. spinoff is just the latest evidence of the strategy that has also divested Time Warner of AOL and Time Warner Cable under Mr. Bewkes’s watch. In an interview, Mr. Bewkes rejected the idea that Time Warner no longer wanted to own Time Inc. because shareholders would get shares of the new company. Time Inc.’s futures may not be as bright as those of, say, the News Corporation, another media conglomerate separating its print and television operations: Time Inc. revenue has declined 30 percent in the last five years and its 21 magazines face a leadership void.

Facebook’s redesigned News Feed, which appeared for some on Thursday and will expand to all Facebook users in coming weeks, has drawn accolades from advertisers, Somini Sengupta writes. Th! e redesigned feed features larger photographs and links, for ads as well as user content, and allows members to create topic-specific feeds. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, said he wanted the company to become “the best personalized newspaper in the world” with an engaging “front page.” Redesigns have met with user complaints and confusion in the past.

Vaseline has started a new product line and ad campaign to persuade women to use more moisturizer, Andrew Adam Newman reports. As 96 percent of women already use some kind of body lotion, this is probably the best way to increase sales. Vaseline, a Unilever brand, recognized that most women skip applying lotion two or three days a week because of how long it takes; the new line, Spray & Go, sprays on effortlessly and does not take long to absorb. The new commercials feature single shots of a womn spraying on moisturizer and dressing for work in a matter of seconds.

Many older consumers wonder about advertisers’ perceived rejection of those beyond the coveted 18- to 49-year-old demographic, Eric Nagourney writes. There is a reason for this ageism â€" young consumers play hard to get more than older demographics, who tend to watch television programs when they air, and they are more likely to be forming brand attachments than older boomers. But take heart: older characters on television shows and the recognition that many boomers are more likely to switch brands demonstrates that marketers still value their attention.