Did you know that Coco Pops turn the milk chocolatey?

Well, if you are from America then you will know them as Cocoa Krispies. But what do Coco Pops and chocolate milk have to do with marketing?

Coco pops are one of the most famous examples of what I call negative to positive marketing. Essentially this means that they had a problem with the product, and they marketed it in such a way that the problem became a feature/benefit.

You see, initially people were disgusted at the prospect of chocolate milk on their cereal. So the marketing team knew they had to turn it around. They created slogans in ad campaigns like:

“Just like a chocolate milkshake, only crunchy!”

“Coco Pops and milk make a bowlful of fun”

“New Coco Pops Creations make a bowlful of fun”

“Coco Pops make milk go choc!”

“Coco Pops turn the milk chocolatey”

Eventually this became one of the leading selling points for the brand, and the rest…. is history.

So can you use these same techniques in your industry?

There are two questions you need to answer first:

1) Can the problem be solved?

2) Is there a possible benefit for this problem?

Ref the first question, if you have created 20 green toy cars, and then you discover that nobody wants a green car and everyone wants a red one, then it would be easier to just fix the problem. Paint the toy cars.

Next we have to see if there is a possible benefit. With Coco Pops the milk was like chocolate, you can easily see why this could be both a good and a bad thing, but if Coco Pops gave you cancer, then all the spin in the world would not make that a positive benefit.