Kellogg has appointed a director of innovation to lead its innovation strategy as it plots more new product launches this year than it has rolled out in recent years as it vies to keep up with the emergence of independent brands moving into the market.
Tamara Howe joined as director of innovation and adult brands from Kellogg's US business last month.
The focus on innovation is in recognition that to achieve its goal of being the leader in the breakfast category it must keep up with changing taste and behaviour trends and go beyond being a traditional breakfast cereal manufacturer, according to CMO John Broome.
Kellogg launched a campaign for its new All Bran muesli product last week, which is the first major move into a new segment for the company. Kellogg is actively taking steps to broaden its reach in the face of new players like Carman's Kitchen which is growing its share of the market.
Broome was tight lipped on what other innovations the cereal maker has up its sleeve but said innovation would increase this year.
As well as appointing Howe, five weeks ago, Broome reshuffled his marketing team merging some of the brand teams and putting his best talent behind a portfolio of what he described as 'powerbrands' - although he was reluctant to reveal which brands in the portfolio these are.
A number of roles were made redundant in the process but the team remains structured into adults' and kids' cereal brands, consumer insights, media, marketing and digital operations and innovation departments.
Part of the shift comes from the impact of globalisation, Broome said, which dictates that brands such as Special K that largely follow a global strategy rather than a locally devised one need smaller teams in market.
The reshuffle of marketing teams is just the latest shift in Kellogg's marketing operations. A year ago Broome set about overhauling the way the company works with its agencies to move to a “collaborative partnership” model.
It put in place the DRCIA model, which stands for Decision, Recommender, Consultant, Information/Insight and Accountability, to offer clarity to each agency partner on who has responsibility for what throughout the process.
Nine months on and Broome says the shift has improved efficiency, productivity and quality of the creative output from all its agencies, adding that it “cleared up ambiguity and the turf wars that you get between agencies but [marketers] only find out about afterwards".
“A lot of the meetings between agencies can now happen without the client in the room and that's good because I don't need to be there all the time. I act as supreme court and make a final decision on anything and off we go. It's made a big, big positive difference in the creative work we're getting out the end and it means our lead agency [JWT] can relax when it comes to working with the specialist agencies,” he said.
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.
Have something to say? Send us your comments using the form below or contact the writer at rosiebaker@yaffa.com.au
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.