by Jennifer Silverberg, Landmark Consulting, www.landmarkconsulting.com
Among school supplies, I would argue that glue has the edge over crayons on consumption characteristics. But, scary elementary school memories aside …
Apparently one of the newest introductions in fruit juice for kids is … CRAYONS. Crayon’s Crayola-like packaging contains such scary-sounding juices as Redder than Ever Fruit Punch, Kiwi Strawberry, Outrageous Orange Mango, Tickled Pink Lemonade and Wild Watermelon & Berries. With these names, it’s no surprise to find only 30% real fruit juice content, but this stuff is positioned as healthy - yikes!
True, as the label screams, it has NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP!, but it has heaping helpings of “pure cane sugar.”
Which brings us to a bit of true genius in this product: the serious-sounding SugarGuard™ Protection System (”to help control the rate of sugar absorption within the body”). Although the “System” appears to be made up of 3 simple grams of fiber, not quite the Guard I would be hoping for, it certainly is an interesting ingredient positioning, and one that could potentially be rolled out to other products as a licensed ingredient. Bravo to Crayon for creating and actually filing for this trademark (I checked).
But back to the Crayons. It’s just an educated guess, but I’d be willing to bet that these entrepreneurs skipped the consumer testing on this one; the brand story is just too jumbled. The naming and packaging scream “chemistry” while the message tries to say “natural.” It’s filled with cane sugar while it boasts of SugarGuard™. Etc.
I do hope these entrepreneurs realize the potential winner that they have on their hands with SugarGuard™, and when Crayons fails, that they don’t overlook their ingredient brand that could have far more legs than Crayons - in drink form - ever could have.�