Lean Cuisine is initiating a brand makeover for itself by trying to dissociate the word "diet" from its products entirely.
The brand, owned by the Swiss conglomerate Nestle, has been facing an issue in recent months regarding its performance, which had not been as good as expected. Hence, Nestle wanted to re-position the brand slightly differently to attract and retain consumers.
Analyses showed that the problem for Lean Cuisine appeared to be that its products were being perceived in a way that was discouraging people from identifying with the brand. The brand seemed to suggest to people that its products were targeted primarily at those that either were on diets or weight loss programs, or were planning to join such programs. Consequently, the brand ended up having, at least in Nestlé's eyes, a negative association with diets and weight loss programs. It was as if people that were looking to eat wholesome and enjoyable foods were somehow not buying Lean Cuisine products at all.
To overcome this perception in the market, Nestle is re-branding Lean Cuisine. It is using the fatigue that many consumers appear to have developed with the idea of diet and weight-control food. Their research also showed them that the word "diet" has now become one of the most-repeated and used words in advertisements on television. The word "diet," for instance, was featured in 23,000 ads in 2015, worth $ 54 million of ad spend, according to The Wall Street Journal.
As a part of this new campaign, Nestle worked with Google's Chrome Internet browser and has developed software that will block all ads featuring the word "diet" when you use this browser for online browsing. They have, as a part of the same campaign, developed an ingenious device that can be connected to your television and satellite set top boxes. Once this device is switched on, it will censor-out every mention of the word "diet" in a program you might watch on TV for 30 seconds (to allow for at least one ad featuring that word to be blocked), according to Adweek Magazine.
