PROJECT FOR THE ZARAGUZA AGENCY AND NESTLÉ, PRAGUE

Pavol Minár - – 26.03.2019

If you have a brand which is basically a national heritage, it is good that everyone knows it. However, due to that, everyone takes it for granted that it is, “unsurprisingly”, a part of all local stores. That is also why it gradually becomes mildly boring and unattractive, as it has “always been here”.

Hand in hand with that, it is losing its value because for a number of years, its sales had been driven by price reductions. That was the situation of Studentská pečeť (Student Seal).

For a brand like this, it is difficult to set up for becoming the preferred brand of young people (i.e. to secure conditions and give motivational nudges toward brand preference) because they did not consider it to be their own chocolate, rather seeing it as something that belongs to the world of their parents and grandparents, now owned by a large global corporation, which is often a handicap of brands like this one in the contemporary world. And, of course: when freshening up the brand, it is necessary to factor in the typical fear of the client that when changing the brand’s story and meaning, we would not lose the crucial consumer base – the current users, i.e. older consumers.

How do you do it, then? The strategy of Studentská pečeť was to dramatise the fact that each and every chocolate of the brand was unique and could not be repeated. That was based on the product facticity – Studentská pečeť is not a smooth chocolate, perfected by machinery. It has a specific, wrinkly surface, and thanks to the production process, it is impossible to create an identical chocolate surface (not to mention its smoothness). That is why every Studentská pečeť is unique and different. How do you show that to the people, though?

Through the Čokoláda hraje (Chocolate Plays) campaign.

Young people bought Studentská pečeť for the music experience. Older people bought it for their grandchildren and children for the music as well – as a gift. Studentská pečeť thus acquired an important meaning as the “always unique chocolate with a unique experience”, along with a great emotional family narrative of “the chocolate that joins generations”.