Hydrox’s Fans Won’t Forget
There is a fun story in today’s WSJ about brand fans of the Oreo also-ran, Hydrox. Kellogg killed off the cookie brand, which would have celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, in 2003 after failing to gain any ground against the Oreo even after reformulating and renaming the product “Droxie” to try to appeal to children. While I personally can not remember ever tasting one of these cookies, this brand had real fans and they are organizing to try to get Kellogg to reconsider.
There is a history of fans using the internet to rally for discontinued “brands” – but with limited success. Jericho fans bombarding the network with nuts to get a few more episodes. Similarly, Save Our Bluths sent banana baskets to Fox which may have contributed to the brilliant/low-rated Arrested Development getting another season, but at a reduced episode order and it was promptly canceled. Hopefully a similar fate is not in store for 30 Rock.
On the beverage front, Save Surge has been around for more than 5 years, but with no real response from Coca Cola, beyond the company trying to enlist these fans to support the launch of their very similar formulation, Vault.
So what holds these brand movements together? I think the Hydrox fans sum it up with their call to arms “Non-conformists don’t eat Oreos“. These challenger brands have an element of delicious discovery and make the users feel independent and in-the-know for supporting them and spreading the word. If the brands had mass popularity, they wouldn’t need movements in the first place! The challenge to marketers is to help all brands – not just those headed toward the dustbin – to instill customers with those same feelings of smart individuality or discovered knowledge that they will be inspired to pass along.