At Alpina Foods, we believe that innovation and change should exist across all consumer touchpoints. Just look at how Alpina developed and marketed its new yogurt in the United States, and you will find innovation at every step of the way.

The U.S. yogurt market is full of great brands, but it is dominated by sameness. To stand out, we needed a unique approach. Therefore, we partnered with renowned industry experts, including management consultants the Zyman Group, ad agencies Universal McCann and Brandiosity, and marketing specialist Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, in order to craft our strategy and identify a powerful insight that would resonate with American consumers.

Rapaille, a psychiatrist, anthropologist and marketing guru, was essential in helping us to adopt a uniquely revolutionary approach. With his assistance, we explored the ways in which the human brain influences everyday buying decisions. This led us to a poignant insight: Women constantly struggle to become their “ideal selves,” to look and act like they wish they would. This becomes a cycle of near-successes followed by disappointing lapses.

To support women in all stages of this cycle, we launched Restart, a 0%-fat yogurt paired with low-fat crunchy granola. Restart provides women with a healthy yogurt that is rich in protein, calcium and fiber, yet is still tempting and indulgent due to its slow-baked granola and chef-made fruit marmalades.

Whether women are succeeding or slipping in their efforts, Alpina empowers them to “Restart” with a tasty, better-for-you solution. We know that women are busy juggling their professional and family lives, so we made Restart perfectly convenient for wholesome, on-the-go nutrition.

With our product defined, our next step was to introduce Restart to an audience that had been force-fed the marketing hype of other yogurt brands for so long. This was not an easy task. So, we made our insight the centerpiece of our campaign.

In doing so, we remind women that “Every Day is A New Day” to achieve their goals. We focused on inspiring them to become their better selves with no judgments along the way. We had to execute our campaign on a limited budget, certainly nothing compared to what the larger brands were spending. Still, we launched a 360-degree marketing campaign, which included street sampling teams, out-of-home advertising, point-of-sale support and a social media program called “Wish for Women.”



Making wishes and donations

Through this program, we asked consumers to share their wish for women, be it for a friend, a family member or for womankind. We partnered with Women in Need (WIN), an organization dedicated to providing shelter and food to homeless women and children in New York. For every wish, we made a donation to WIN, helping more women to get back on their feet.

To draw attention to our campaign and to Restart, we built a butterfly habitat in a storefront on Park Avenue in the heart of New York City. Even jaded New Yorkers were impressed and had to stop and stare. Hundreds of monarch butterflies fluttered in our butterfly habitat, a temperature-controlled environment complete with plants, flowers and a misting system.

We embellished our storefront with beautiful branded quilling art (strips of paper that were rolled, shaped and glued together) and built a digital mirror with a silhouette recognition system. The mirror identified passersby, so virtual butterflies could “land” on them while they watched. Three seconds later, a photo was taken. People could obtain and share their picture directly on Facebook or Twitter. (For more information, see our website, www.alpina.com, and Facebook page www.facebook.com/alpinausa.)

The response to this campaign was fantastic. Our results exceeded expectations, and 20,000 New Yorkers stopped to sample Restart. We collected more than 400 wishes for women. New stores requested to carry our product. With such innovative strategies and an outside-the-box mindset, Alpina’s future is certain to be deliciously bright.  n



Carlos Ramirez is the general manager for Alpina Foods, Miami. Based in Bogota, Colombia, Alpina is building a yogurt processing facility in Batavia, N.Y.



Dairy Foods seeks essay from dairy processors. Contact carperj@dairyfoods.com.