Embrace Your Big Fat, Sweet Truth in Food Brand Marketing

Indulge yourself: Own your truth in food brand marketing.

When it seems like the whole world is made up of gluten-free-keto-vegan-organic-paleo healthy, good-for-you foods and your brand – which will never win any health food prizes – is a sweet, sugar or fat-laden treat, my advice is to embrace it. You don’t need to advocate folks eating sugar all day long, but no matter what the state of the snack food market (it’s doing just fine) you need to grab your market share.  Go big with messaging around “treat” and “indulgence” and emphasize the truth in food brand marketing.

Trends toward healthy eating being what they are it can be hard to see that while all the reports (like this 2018 Food and Health Survey Report by the IFIC Foundation) are pointing toward a more health-conscious consumer, a lot of food purchases occur without reading a label.

The sweets, snack and junk food markets are flourishing.

Consider this Oct 2018 Time Magazine article by Jamie Ducharme on the drivers of fast-food market growth: Almost 40% of Americans Eat Fast Food on Any Given Day, Report Says.

…consumption went up with family income. Forty-two percent of higher-income adults (those with household incomes above 350% of the federal poverty level) ate fast food on a given day, compared to nearly 32% of those whose families earned 130% of the national poverty level or less.

McDonald and Wendys may advertise and offer healthy options on their menus, but the fries and the Big Mac drive sales.

This is from the Global Sweet and Savory Snacks Market Report 2018:

The global market size of sweet and savory snacks was worth USD 144.0 billion, and it is projected to reach USD 219.6 billion in 2024. 

Still in doubt? Look to the Twinkie.

One more sticky sweet item that stands tall in the ethos of truly indulgent snack treats to support the argument around embracing your brand’s truth in food brand marketing…almost 1.1 million Twinkies are eaten around the world every day.

Flip the script: Own it, embrace it and challenge conventional thinking.

It turns out Jamie Ducharme, the author from the fast food article above, published another article: Can Eating Dessert Be Good for Your Diet? I highly suggest reading the article and looking for all the research-based arguments for having sugar as a part of a healthy diet. Then bake that message into your marketing message.

If you have clean label ingredients, own it. If you are locally grown or gluten-free, own it. The same goes if your brand isn’t “healthy” food. NewPoint advice? Marketing and branding are all about identifying and embracing what differentiates your brand from the competition. Don’t just own it, speak the truth in food brand marketing and flaunt it as your main selling point!