ZonePerfect was seeking to refine its brand strategy and identity to clearly define its place in the market amongst ever-growing competition.
While ZonePerfect rises to the top in terms of taste and texture, we found ZonePerfect bars were often difficult for consumers to place or classify due to low product awareness.
Not Truly Protein & Workout
Consumers considered the brand name, their limited knowledge of taste and flavor profiles and recall of protein content along with ingredient list to ultimately push ZonePerfect into the Protein & Workout category. However it was often noted the other bars in the category were much more serious protein bars with higher counts and much worse taste.
Not Weight Loss
There was very low awareness around the Zone diet, which is one of the reasons the brand was not placed with Atkins or SlimFast.
Not Natural & Premium
ThinkThin was also it a similar position to ZonePerfect with consumers waffling on whether it could fall into a Natural & Premium or even the Weight Loss category.
It became clear that ZP base has the opportunity to sit squarely in the weight loss/management and protein space, while its expanded offer could push into new areas. We needed to create a strategy that would set the brand up for success.
We conducted a quantitative segmentation to understand the universe of attitudes & behaviors in the category of nutrition bars and prioritized our segments by evaluating population size, brand awareness, ZonePerfect satisfaction, openness to a new brand, and hesitancy to consider. We narrowed to two target segments: The Weightloss Worrior and The Disillusioned Dieters, and created profiles for each. Through our research we were able to identify connection points between the two that provided a solid halo opportunity.
After completing a competitive audit to establish where consumers place ZonePerfect in the market and how we could establish a distinct brand identity, we developed concepts to push the brand and tested each in focus groups with our target consumers.
Once we gathered feedback on our concepts, we leveraged the strongest elements of each to create a cohesive brand strategy and identity. To bring the complete package to life, we developed a comprehensive 360 Brand Toolkit, which includes the strategy and visual & verbal guidelines — along with behavioral and sensory guidelines — to outline how the brand should look, speak, feel, smell, sound, and act.