Planters Nuts Case Study

In 2012, facing increased competition, declining household penetration rates and tightening margins, Planters Nuts embarked on formulating a turn-around strategy. Fueled by newly hired SVP and GM, Mark Magnesen and Senior Director, Sean Marks, the Planters team performed an initial audit focused on the brands positioning, targeting, economics and potential product mix.

While Planters offers a wide-variety of nuts ranging from peanuts to exotic medleys, they are most identifiable to consumers as a peanut company. Other companies such as Wonderful, Blue Diamond, and Emerald have capitalized on witty marketing campaigns to capture market share. As competition has increased, margin has begun to erode. Off-label store brand nuts, which account for 31.6% of category dollars and are perceived by customers as “just as good”, are now available at most grocers.

Interestingly though, while facing fierce competition, Planters Nuts remains the leader in brand awareness and is steadily outpacing its competitors in top of mind, unaided and aided awareness. Planters was founded in 1906 with aspirations to become ‘the national nut’ and through the years has launched various marketing campaigns and innovations that have made it a well-known brand.

Conversely, the Wonderful Company, Blue Diamond, and Emerald whom were all founded relatively close to Planters had failed to build this awareness as the nuts they focused on initially were less popular and their marketing campaigns lacked. The brand legacy and heritage Planters is able to tap into is difficult to overcome and compete with in a short period of time.

Currently, Planters is facing a leaky bucket problem. Food and nutritional trends have pushed almonds and pistachios into the realm of ‘super food’. In pursuit of this hot market, Planters has experienced weakened sales volumes in their traditional nut business; peanuts, cashews and mixed nuts. Planters could go one of two ways