Are you really doing yourself a favour when you grab a yogurt smoothie as a quick but healthy breakfast? Many of the drinkable yogurt options you have to choose from make the claim that they are healthy alternatives offering digestive health benefits.

If you do choose a drinkable yogurt you arent alone. Over 40 percent of consumers claim to buy and consume drinkable yogurt for the digestive health benefits and over 90 percent say that they are drinking these yogurt beverages for breakfast.

Our increasing awareness of the relationship between what we eat and our health is influencing our food choices, which is one reason why yogurt, in any form, is experiencing significant growth. Canadians consume twice as much yogurt as our American neighbours. Over the past decade, per capita consumption of yogurt by Canadians has risen by over 50 percent, to 10.31 litres per individual per year. That is a lot of yogurt!

Not only is yogurt consider a breakfast food alternative, but it is also seen as a healthy snack, with 80 percent of consumers choosing yogurt as their mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack. That is almost double the number that chose yogurt as a snack in 2015.

With yogurt on the grocery list of over 91 percent of Canadians, competition in the category has intensified. There are more choices, more packaging formats, and greater advertising dollars being spent, with messaging concentrated on functional health claims. Drinkable yogurts, is the category generating much of the growth, as they offer a more portable, more convenient way to consume such a healthy food option at various times throughout the day.

Kraft Heinz Canada is getting into the category of drinkable yogurts, targeting adults, by leveraging the high brand equity and market share of its Philadelphia cream cheese brand. Philadelphia cream cheese is in almost 60 percent of Canadian homes. The brand and the visual equity of the signature silver colour provide great shelf presence.

Kraft Heinz research indicated that an opportunity existed for a convenient drinkable product that offered protein and fibretwo other health benefits consumers sought in their morning diet. Realizing the highly competitive nature of the drinkable category, and the potential for double-digit growth versus spoonable yogurt, Kraft Heinz needed a competitive advantage and the Philadelphia name and iconic packaging offered just that.

In April 2017 Philadelphia VIVA Protein Yogurt Smoothie hit the dairy shelves of Canadian retailers. Supported by instantly recognizable packaging, television and online video, digital, social media, and in-store activations throughout the year, Kraft Heinz hopes to catch the health-conscious, convenience-oriented Millennial. Is this a drinkable, protein smoothie that you would grab and consume?

1) Is the Philadelphia brand strong enough to generate trial and loyalty. Why?

2) Using the communication process, discuss how the brand name will support encoding and decoding of the message.

3) Evaluate the integrated marketing communications campaign by considering each of the factors that influence the promotional mix.