Hostess Slims Down with 100 Calorie Packs

Kansas City, MO -- On Feb. 19, Interstate Bakeries Corp. debuted Hostess 100 Calorie Packs on roughly 20,000 floorstands and wing displays in supermarkets. Additional pallet displays designed exclusively for Wal-Mart followed last month. The packs are a new calorie-conscious line extension of the Hostess brand. Each pack contains three mini Hostess Cupcakes with creamy filling in a trio of flavors. The grocery store P-O-P boasts simple design and minimal copy, and the floorstands can hold up to 54 packages of the product, says Kevin Kaul, marketing director for Hostess. What's more, the unit is about 60% the size of displays used to showcase Hostess' core line, because the product itself is smaller, he adds.Graphics feature a pale blue swirl that both reflects traditional Hostess graphics and communicates that the 100 Calorie Pack is a lighter version of other Hostess products, adds Larson Stiegemeyer, vice president, group account director with Kansas City's Bernstein Rein Advertising, which collaborated with Interstate Bakeries on the display.The swirl on traditional Hostess packaging is a darker color, whereas the 100 Calorie Pack swirl is lighter. "You want to echo it, but not repeat it," Stiegemeyer says. "You want to be part of Hostess but let people know this has a different focus." White was selected as the display's dominant color for several reasons, Stiegemeyer says. First, it is associated with both the Hostess brand and bakery products in general. Second, it provides a clean canvas on which to splash a simple color palette. Third, within a grocery aisle's cluttered environment, the white displays stand out.The simple approach carried into the copy as well. Consumers are well aware of 100-calorie versions of other popular brands, Stiegemeyer says. "We wanted to talk about what you're getting here versus your expectations with other products. You're getting that satisfaction you expect with a Hostess cupcake."With that in mind, marketers created the tagline: "3 Cakes. 100 Calories. Real Satisfaction." Designed and produced by Chicago Display Manufacturing Corp., River Grove, IL, the unit is a corrugated display measuring 18 inches wide, 13 inches deep and 56-1/2 inches tall, including the header card. It is designed to ship flat but pops easily into place, with set-up handled by Hostess route sales reps, Kaul says. The grocery store displays are sturdy units and will be used off and on for the next six months, Kaul says.The Wal-Mart pallet displays bear the same graphics and message, but hold far more product. "It needs to sit on their pallet," Kaul says. "Wal-Mart has certain requirements for displays that sit on their pallets and additional requirements as to how their standard price sign positions on top of their pallet displays." The Wal-Mart displays were to remain up for two to three weeks.The launch of the Hostess 100 Calorie Pack is backed by advertising and promotion in other media, including a freestanding insert coupon that dropped in Sunday newspapers on March 11, and a March print campaign in magazines that included People, Us Weekly, Good Housekeeping and O."We use more imagery in the print ad, where we have the luxury to do so," Stiegemeyer says. "The ad shows the cakes on a cake stand in a diner. The idea is to reinforce that these Hostess 100 Calorie products are real cake. We're showing them in places where you would expect to find cake -- and real good cake." Interstate Bakeries did file for bankruptcy in 2004, posting further losses in February, according to reports. However, it hasn't had any direct impact on the rollout, Stiegemeyer says.

Hostess Slims Down with 100 Calorie Packs

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