52 PW JUN2022
By Anne Marie Mohan, Senior Editor
Milk-Bone Rebrand Affirms, ‘Life’s More Fun with a Dog’ Pure doggie joy—that’s the emotion that comes through on new packaging for The J.M. Smucker Company’s Milk-Bone dog biscuit brand. The smile that crosses the consumer’s face upon spotting the new branding on the store shelf is the result of a partnership between the J.M. Smucker team and brand strategy and design agency CBX that involved work on research and insights, brand architecture, design strategy, identity design, package design, and a photo shoot with 80 dogs.
Born in New York City 1908, Milk-Bone has been the category leader in dog treats for much of its 100-plus-year history, begging the question, why rebrand? “I think two reasons,” says Ryan Thomas, VP of Marketing, Pet Division, The J.M. Smucker Company. “One, Milk-Bone is a healthy brand. And a healthy business is one that is constantly looking back at itself and seeing what it can do better. As a brand team, as good brand stewards over the past two years, we had stared at the brand and said, we can do better on our packaging. Our brand deserves to be in the 21st century, to be blunt. “The other driving force was that our country had changed. We knew that many millennial and Gen Z households were having their first fur babies to start their families. There was just a cultural shift in dog parents in general, and what those dog parents are expecting, and how they ‘treat’ that moment with their pet.” As with most iconic brands, the challenge was to retain enough of the existing brand elements to ensure consumers still recognized the brand on-shelf, while providing a fresh, modern feel. “The biggest concern is we are a 113-year-old brand, and we have a household penetration that is the highest in the category—our awareness is really high,” says Thomas. “So, people know Milk-Bone, they know
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the box, our loyalty rates are some of the highest in the category. We also know from research that consumers shop by the image of the dog that’s on the front of our package. Disrupting the neurological habitual pathways that have been created is dangerous. If it takes them more than a quarter of a second more than it did last time to shop and find their favorite treat, that’s a problem. I think that was what kept me up at night.” CBX began its work on the rebrand in January 2020, guided by research from J.M. Smucker. Shares Chris Cook, Creative Director for CBX, “We learned that the dog imagery [on the existing packaging] was key to delivering on the anticipation of the treat and helped to communicate joy and happiness. Even more so, we found that the classic wagging tongue of the dogs helped further communicate taste and anticipation. We also learned how willing current Milk-Bone consumers were to embrace change, which was crucial for our success. We needed to retain the essence of the Milk-Bone brand while enhancing consumers’ engagement with the package.” CBX worked with Milk-Bone to establish the key pillars to better organize the brand’s portfolio of 25+ SKUs and conducted work sessions to strategically align to equities across the brand architecture pillars and bring them to life. “We created a visual and verbal toolkit designed around the concept of ‘Life’s More Fun with a Dog,’ and used that foundation to overhaul the packaging system with a fresh, updated feel,” explains CBX Client Director Katherine Spahr.
Free Download: Pet Packaging Sustainability Two consumer trends that stemmed from the pandemic have been increased scrutiny on packaging’s sustainability, and a lot more time spent with—thus money spent on—pets. What kinds of packaging sustainability trends are affecting the pet food market? Find out in this report. Visit pwgo.to/7375 for the free download from Packaging World and PMMI Media Group. PW
5/20/22 13:15
