Is this the end of flavour?
The Mix Global's Tash Walker looks at the power and pitfalls of 'fantasy flavours'
Growing up, being a feminist meant rejecting heavily gendered narratives such as ‘girls wear pink and like Barbies’.
Do me a favour.
Reader, I never wear pink and the one Barbie I was given I shaved her head and made her a punk.
Fast forward and now, as a parent myself, my notions of what constitutes femininity are being challenged. For you see, my very own precious angel, darling 4-year-old daughter is in fact a hardcore pinkohollic.
When asked her favourite colour, her stock answer is ‘pink, purple and sparkly.’
So, it did not surprise me one jot, when she got to pick a treat the other day, she chose the one that spoke to her very soul. Starburst have a new candy called ‘All pink’.
What interested me about her choice is that last time I checked, ‘pink’ isn’t a flavour. And yet, we are increasingly seeing the rise of so-called ‘fantasy flavours’: flavours which have no discernible active ingredient, but represent ‘a vibe’ or a feeling.
As The New Yorker so wittily put it, ‘Capitalism has reached the end of flavours”.
From seltzers to energy drinks, yogurts to cider, candy to fast food, it would seem that brands believe that flavour can be trusted to deliver growth.
But what happens when all the flavours run out?
Speaking candidly with one retailer recently, they said that if someone came to her with another peach x apple x insert other fruit variant she was going to “chuck them out of the 1st floor window”.
It seems we are at a pivotal moment for flavour. Apparently, you can have too much of a good thing.
But why do brands pursue flavour so much anyway?
In simple terms: to sell more stuff. They have the capacity to create an urgency that people find irresistible: the excitement of trying something new.
As humans we are hard wired to be curious, we get easily bored by the status quo, but flavour is a brilliantly easy way of delivering something familiar (a product that I know and trust) with the all important allure of something shiny and new (a flavour I haven’t tried yet).
It ties into the trend The Mix Global has been exploring: the rise of Edible Escapism. As people - Gen Z in particular - increasingly use food to take them to a place or feeling, but also to craft an identity through their food and drink choices.
There was even a US study showing that human beings find people more romantically attractive if they are willing to try new flavours in food.
Yet, flavour can be a poisoned chalice. The bodies of thousands of failed flavour extensions litter the pathway to glory.
There are lots of reasons for this:
Often what feels like growth is really just diluting your core
The flavour extension is actually just diverting sales away from your core product
Flavour extensions might be less margin accretive
The portfolio starts to proliferate which makes it harder to manage
Retailers lose confidence in the brand
The end result is that flabby portfolios often end up in a doom spiral of deals and commoditisation, as the brand itself is weakened by the flavour extension.
As Charlie White from the Brandgym explains:
“As every brand team knows, as soon as a limited-edition flavour gets traction and starts flying off the shelves, the temptation is to add it to the core range. This approach risks diluting the effect of subsequent limited editions and also creates complexity on the core range.”
You don’t have to look far to find examples. Anyone remember Colgate lemon flavour?
It seems to me that lots of brands don’t have a strategy for flavour extension. They are simply adding flavour in hope.
In hope of visibility, of noise, of simply holding shelf space away from a competitor.
But this doesn’t equate to portfolio strategy, it’s reactive and tactical.
Certainly if you look at lots of categories, they don’t feel like strategies, they feel like an arms race. Duplicates of flavours left right and centre with a net result of commoditisation.
So how do you do flavour well?
The critical question is this: What are consumers buying? Is it important that the flavour they are buying is coming from your brand? If it isn’t, then is it actually weakening your brand?
Back to ‘All Pink’ Starbursts.
Are so called ‘fantasy flavours’ the next great wave of flavour development?
I have two thoughts about this:
It’s good news because brands are thinking about strategy more – positioning their flavours as being about an emotion at least suggests that it will be more ownable and linked to the brand
It’s bad news because actually fantasy flavours so far, feel highly duplicative of one another – pink, unicorns, chilled vibes – if I’ve seen one I’ve seen them all
It’s clear that having a flavour strategy rooted in the brand is what makes the critical difference.
It’s clear that having a flavour strategy rooted in the brand is what makes the critical difference.
Not the flavour itself.
What are the good examples?
Those where the brand feels strong and they make the leap from disposable flavour to flavour that appears in culture.
Walkers Sensations Thai Sweet Chilli
Starbucks Pumpkin Spiced Latte
Smirnoff Spicy Tamarind
Mountain Dew Baha Blast
Critically, the brand is key. The taste of these by any other competitor would not be the authentic taste of that product. All imitators pale in comparison. The recipes themselves have a certain je ne sais quoi. They aren’t singular ingredients, but have a twist or some kind of element you can’t easily replicate.
And, as The Washington Post put it, “Taco Bell and Mountain Dew have stoked demand by controlling the supply”.
This is an altogether different strategy from the flavour proliferation we can see in other categories like Hard Seltzers.
There’s a commitment to the flavour and supporting it to become part of a total brand experience.
Limited time offers (LTO’s) can be very effective here. You have the possibility of creating the noise and disruption that brands are looking for, but you also don’t risk diluting the brand by adding whole new SKU’s into the portfolio.
LTO’s also create more potential for activation, gaining support from retailers and in general having more to say for themselves than a simple line extension.
So in summary:
Flavour fantasy is the latest example of flavour extensions but what brands are really searching for is a flavour strategy.
Be extremely cautious about adding more lines into the portfolio
Be very aware of the potential for dilution of margin, weakening of the core and lack of focus that flavours create
What most brands need is a strong reason to innovate – a point of view that brings more than the sum of its parts and has the potential to deliver a more exciting extension
Use LTO’s as a way of delivering these with the idea that you need to amplify flavour beyond an ingredient, using cultural or sensorial stimulus to give people something to talk about.
To learn all about our Edible Escapism and our research into the topic, join our webinar on 18 September, where we will be sharing our findings and discussing them with Alex Hardy from Nomad Foods, an expert in the world of insight and FMCG.
Sign up for free here: https://themixglobal.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_b1DMIPG3QMu_SNb_TVXLNQ#/registration