Chobani Turns 10 With ‘New Look, Same Yogurt’

Chobani, the little Greek Yogurt that could (and did) gain market dominance in the U.S., is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a new wordmark, packaging design and new products to refresh how people perceive the brand as it expands its vision and mission towards “universal wellness.”

“We make yogurt, but our business is wellness—for the fans who enjoy our products to the communities we operate in,” stated Peter McGuinness, CMO and Commercial Officer, Chobani.

“As we approached 10 years as a national brand, we spent the past ten years focusing on the impact our company can and does have on communities across America, using food as a force for good. That’s framing how we’re looking at the next decade, and our new packaging is the first glimpse into that. It’s a beautiful translation of our brand and our purpose that moves us closer to becoming a food-focused wellness company.”

The new creative theme, Fighting for Happily Ever After, affects everything from its logo and packaging to its website, campaigns and branded retail cafés.

coming up on 10 years as a national brand.. so proud to share this beautiful translation of @chobani. reflects all the values we’ve had since day 1.. craftsmanship & food as a force for good. https://t.co/MLXIakn9Ti pic.twitter.com/q0XqAIlrUL

— Hamdi Ulukaya (@hamdiulukaya) November 28, 2017

Chobani is defining wellness as:

• Nutritional Wellness: Scaling our efforts to provide better food for more people.
• Social Wellness: Increasing our investment in the communities we serve and the people who craft our food.
• Environmental Wellness: Building a supply chain that ensures the planet’s health.

Starting in December, the brand is rolling out its first-ever regional offering, Chobani with a Hint Of, which is blended Greek yogurt made with only natural ingredients and hand-selected varietal real fruits and spices. Priced at $1.49 per 5.3-oz cup, A Hint Of will be available first in America’s Pacific, Northeast and Florida regions, and expand to national distribution in July 2018.

“A Hint Of” provides Chobani fans with a new option with only natural sweeteners (9g sugar) and high protein (12g), and a mildly sweet taste in five curated flavors: Madagascar Vanilla Cinnamon, Wild Blueberry, Monterey Strawberry, Gili Cherry and Alphonso Mango.

Chobani is also expanding its offerings to add new items such as Chobani Smooth Strawberry Banana and Limited Batch Chobani Flip Buttercrunch Blast.

McGuinness told Ad Age that the yogurt aisle is a “sea of sameness” and so the brand’s new wordmark and packaging will make it more distinctive at shelf and in the refrigerator section. “You’re going to see us do category campaigns around the nutrient density of yogurt—not about price, not about bowel movements, not about sweepstakes.”

New look, same yogurt. Always Chobani. pic.twitter.com/SaC0ev5ygD

— Chobani (@Chobani) November 28, 2017

In February, the brand is planning to celebrate its 10th anniversary with activations for fans and initiatives focused on strengthening communities. The company will spend 30% more on marketing in 2018, including a 50 % increase in the first half of the year when it releases two new 15-second spots, one focused on Chobani Flip and the other on its fruit on the bottom line of Greek yogurt.

“We always tried to make all the packaging feel like someone who lived in the land of happily ever after made it,” said Chief Creative Officer Leland Maschmeyer.

The new look draws on 19th-century American folk art, particularly quilt work from the Mid-Atlantic region. “Things are going to feel more enchanting, they’re going to feel more heightened, they’re going to feel truly like they’re kind of sprinkled in fairy dust,” said Maschmeyer.

As a private company, Chobani doesn’t release full results but did share a double-digit percentage rate of growth this year and sales in 2016 that surpassed $1.5 billion. Chobani’s current market share of overall yogurt (+20%) is the highest it’s ever been on a sustained basis, representing a 40% share of the Greek Yogurt segment.  Euromonitor International projects its sales will exceed $1.84 billion this year, which should help it maintain the title of America’s #1 Greek Yogurt brand and the second largest overall yogurt manufacturer in the U.S.

In the past year, Chobani also shook things up by disbanding its traditional marketing department, according to WARC, and replacing it with a “demand creation” department that gathers marketing, sales, insights and similar functions into a streamlined business division. “We don’t have a marketing department anymore; we don’t have any sales department; we don’t have any insights department,” said Çağdaş Şirin, SVP/Chobani, and head of “demand solutions and research,” “We combined all of them … We said, ‘Why don’t we bring all these groups together?’ So we have one department that works with the same goal: generating demand.”

“Basically, for every work-stream, there is an owner. But, in all these processes, we make sure there is a research stream in it. And then we partner and criss-cross the work with them,” he reported. “All the team members come together to unlock the insight from the research that we are doing – so, not just researchers, but other groups also participate in this process. The storytelling – or the story-writing – is a collaborative effort. So, at the end of the day, we have the story, [and] all the team members have contributed. And the good part is they all own that outcome, because they contributed.”

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