Brand Building: Auntie Anne's Uses Twisted Logic to Reposition
Snacks chain Auntie Anne's repositions its brand without losing current loyal customers.
By Margaret Littman, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 2/9/2009 1:00:00 PM
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| Above: After. Auntie Anne's kept its iconic pretzel as part of its logo, as well as its blue and white checkerboard color scheme. But its rebranding added new energy, more personality and the ultimate endorsement: a halo over the pretzel. Below: Before. |
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If consumers are hungry while strolling through the shopping mall, they'll soon be able to stop at Auntie Anne's for more than just a snack. After being in tested in 100 stores, later this year at least half of the Lancaster, Pa.-based chain's franchisees are expected to add a pepperoni pretzel and pocket sandwiches with meat, cheese and sauce inside a pretzel. The new menu items are the latest step in what has been a three-year rebranding process for the 20-year-old chain.
Auntie Anne's had had its success. By 2005 Auntie Anne's had 887 locations, primarily franchised, and an international audience of customers who loved the hand-rolled, butter-dipped pretzels. But as fond as consumers were of the product, they didn't have much of an emotional connection to--or even opinion of--the brand.
As the company prepared to pass the two-decade mark, it wanted to strengthen the brand without losing the toehold it already had with tweens, teens and frequent travelers, the customers who most often frequented the chain's locations, which are primarily in shopping malls, airports and train stations.
"Through research we found that consumers loved us and loved our product, but the brand was not strong. Lots of consumers did not know who we were," says Heather Neary, Auntie Anne's chief marketing officer. "In the mall environment, there is a lot going on, and we wanted to stand out."
The Halo Effect
The chain started that standing-out process at the end of 2005, when Auntie Anne's hired Dallas-based branding and advertising agency The Richards Group for a short-term rebranding assignment: Redesign the logo and help infuse the company's personality into its brand. The Richards Group had done similar work for Chick-fil-A, creating those now-famous cows that encourage diners to eat more chicken.
When Anne Beiler and her husband, Jonas, founded Auntie Anne's, Beiler literally grabbed a pretzel, placed it on the copy machine, and that image became the company's logo. That was a fine and frugal way for a new company to identify itself and make it clear that it was all about the pretzels. But as the chain--and the competition--grew, Auntie Anne's wanted to be about more than just pretzels. It wanted to be about fun, spontaneity and pretzels that went above and beyond the idea of just a good pretzel.
The team created a new logo that kept the existing blue and white color palette, which was part of consumers' limited association with the brand. The new logo sports a halo over the beloved pretzel and a tagline: "pretzel perfection." The new look showed up in employee uniforms, packaging, menu boards and point-of-purchase materials. The team also redesigned the Auntie Anne's Web site, but stayed away from traditional advertising, which is out of the chain's budget.
The new look appealed so much to the chain's franchisees that the idea of a short term assignment was tossed. The Richards Group presented the revamp to the chain's franchisees, and Dale Hruby, agency principal at The Richards Group, says the team had a message asking them to become Auntie Anne's agency of record before they got back to the office after the meeting.
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| SNAPSHOT Concept Auntie Anne's Pretzels Headquarters Lancaster, Pa. Units 980 2008 Systemwide Sales $333.4 million (company estimate) Average Check $4.35 Ad Agency The Richards Group, Dallas Expansion Plans 42 domestic units, 52 international units in 2009 |
Today Auntie Anne's is closing in on 1,000 locations. Systemwide sales increased nearly 8 percent between 2007 and 2008, much of which is attributed to the new image. There was a 10 percent increase in brand awareness in 2007, as new customers, including women with children, began to visit.
Reaching Out
Neary says the brand is building on the rebranding success, while adapting to new marketplace challenges. Because Auntie Anne's is an impulse brand, rather than a destination for diners, it has a varied demographic of anyone who passes through a shopping mall or airport.
In 2008, the next step in solidifying the hip image came when the team created a text messaging campaign. Signs around the mall encouraged shoppers to send a text message to get a code for a free pretzel. Those who participated were rewarded with an electronic coupon for another free pretzel three weeks later. The target market was tweens and teens, although Neary says the chain saw many moms participate, too, and is proud that the brand appeals to both kids and their parents; for many brands the choice is one or the other.
"Our customers said our product belongs on a pedestal. So we made pretzel perfection not just our tagline, but our internal mantra," Neary adds. "We had a lot of fun with it."
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