Influx

If one was to look at the breath mint category in the late 1990s, there was not a lot of innovation going on. The only news, Altoids, an old British brand, had taken the category by storm by re-introducing the traditional mint, albeit with nice packaging and great advertising.

This move by Kraft’s Altoids introduced consumers to the concept of fashionable mints and in so doing transformed the category. In 2001, Pfizer launched the breath strip under its Listerine brand. The results were explosive; the category’s first year sales were around $30 million and grew exponentially to $300 million by the end of 2003.

By 2004, the category was over-crowded, with hundreds of products competing for shelf space. Retailers were starting to become more selective and eliminating brands. One casualty appears to have been Wrigley, who last week announced that they were shifting breath strip production from the US to Europe, because the market conditions were better.

http://www.forbes.com/business/commerce/feeds/ap/2004/10/21/ap1604356.html

Kraft has now sold Altoids to Wrigley.

wrigley buys altoids and lifesavers

This case illustrates that consumers were educated by brands into perceiving the mint category as fashion, the mints you carry and the packaging had become all-important cues. With the breath strip explosion, suddenly, the delivery system became the lead signifier; as it showed the consumer was on the look out for the latest solution to breath freshness.

Once the consumer had become trained on innovation, they expected it, as did the retailers. Today, the once sleepy mint category is going through it’s next wave of innovation, with liquid mint drops the latest craze and speculation about breath drinks being next. Consequently, breath strips are no longer the latest thing.

For brands in new fashion-driven categories, it shows that one innovation is simply not enough. If you succeed in transforming the mindset of the category to a fashion driven one, the expectation from consumers and retailer is that is going to continue. So the pressure is on for continued innovation. Also, the company needs to be able to forecast and plan correctly. The sales curve for these fashion driven categories is different; it looks like a really steep climb to begin with, followed by a sharp decline and then a leveling out. Not a boom and bust or a 45 degree diagonal. Breath mint strips are still big sellers, but their early growth numbers could never be sustained and should never have been built into forecasts.

Inevitably fashion-led innovation has the benefit of bringing dynamism and differentiation. Consequently, it is likely to creep into many unexpected categories in the packaged goods arena, but to succeed, brands operating in these fields, need be able to adapt new mindsets.

As a sidenote, the manufactuers of the starch strips are now looking for other categories to expand into; on the horizon; vitamins, pharmaceuticals and energy drinks, all conveniently delivered on the strip.