136 SUPERBRANDS

Market Thanks to the great range of products under theumbrella brand name Kinder, Ferrero holds the leadingposition in some of the most important confectionarymarket segments. In Croatia the first largest and mostimportant market segment is chocolate tablets thatamount to 5500 tones a year and which consists ofFerrero's brand Kinder Chocolate (Source:ACNielsen2006).

The second segment is the snacks market with 3500tones per year.This subcategory is divided into threeparts: countlines and wafers (consisting of Kinder Buenoand Kinder Happy Hippo), chilled snacks (Kinder Pingui,Kinder Milch Schnitte and Kinder Maxi King) and surpriseeggs, namely Kinder Surprise (Source:ACNielsen 2006).

From the 90’s onward, the confectionary marketbecame richer for one new category, namely chilledsnacks which must be kept in a refrigerator due to theirhigh percentage of fresh milk content. From the launchon the Croatian market its share became dominant andcontinually increases. In this market segment there is asmall number of competitors and until now no one hasmanaged to take the leading position away from Kinder.

Thanks to the brilliant mind of Michele Ferrero, theinventor of the chocolate surprise eggs, today KinderSurprise is the absolute leader on the surprise eggsmarket.

AchievementsToday Kinder is a very successful brand name, knownboth in Croatia and worldwide. One of the specialfeatures of this brand name is certainly the fact that it hassucceeded in becoming a leader on the internationalmarket of chocolate based products.

The secret of such success is undoubtedlythe fact that Kinder has always

offered products which meet the needs oftwo different consumer categories: motherswho buy midmorning snacks and chocolateKinder products because they are healthy andwholesome, and children who like theproducts because they are tasteful.

Furthermore, Kinder products are unique.Packaging, visual features and taste have alwaysbeen different compared to other productsoffered on the confectionary market, andusually they have served as a basis fordevelopment of other product categories and,as a consequence, for conquering newmarkets. Research always aimed at creatingnew products, as well as maintaining andpreserving their uniqueness throughout theyears, and has rewarded Kinder with the leading positionon the overall confectionary products market.

HistoryThe history of Kinder is a story of success which startedalmost forty years ago.At the end of the 60’s, Ferrerowas a small company with a total turnover of about 100billion liras, facing international giants who seemedinvincible.

Such circumstances inspired Ferrero to specialize andfocus on creating unique and exclusively recognizable andhigh quality products.An additional impulse for creating aproduct line entirely dedicated to children’s nourishmentwas given by a baby boom which occurred exactly at thesame time.

In 1968 Kinder conceived in Italy and then launchedin Germany its first product: chocolate bars divided intosmall portions which mothers could give freely to theirchildren because the dose is limited and the chocolatecontains “more milk and less cocoa”.

The chocolate products line includes KinderSurprise, one of the Kinder milestones and one of itsmost famous products worldwide. Kinder Surprise waslaunched in 1974, and it is a chocolate Kinder egg with asurprise - a little toy which incites the child’s imaginationand skillfulness. It is aimed at children over the age of 3,and it actually contains three pleasures in one: surprise ofdiscovery, a toy and a delicious chocolate taste. In 30years no attempt of the competition to imitate KinderSurprise has managed to come even close to its results,neither in terms of quantity nor popularity.

On the snacks market, on which during the 80’s theEnglish brand names were predominant, Kinder enteredwith Kinder Bueno very successfully, both in terms ofsales and its acceptance among consumers. Not verylong after, a new idea of chilled snacks was born andrealized, and by launching no less than three products(Kinder Milch Schnitte, Kinder Pingui and Kinder Paradiso),Kinder reaped much greater success.

In the last decade the position ofKinder has become stronger, which

1968 1974 19901977

Kinder ENG 12.03.2007 13:45 Page 136

137SUPERBRANDS

is a success not easily possible to explain in terms of salesvolume and market shares. Despite this position, Kindercontinues to offer other new and unique products.

ProductOn the confectionary market Kinder offers manydifferent products: from chocolate snacks to chocolateeggs and chilled snacks. Kinder is also one of the greatestconfectionary brands in Europe. Some of their productshave already become part of the Croatian and Europeanfood culture, like Kinder Chocolate and Kinder Surprise(the well known surprise egg), which help childrendevelop a delicious but healthy chocolate consumption.

There is also one more successful Kinder product,consisting of a new generation of chilled snacks, KinderPingui, which has conquered in a very short period thehearts of children thanks to its ingredients: crispychocolate, milky cream and delicious biscuit.

Although Kinder is a brand name focusedexclusively on children, its products are very wellaccepted both by the young and grown-ups alike, andone of the best examples of this is Kinder Bueno. It is onemore international achievement of the Ferrero company,for it represents a chocolate snack of a refined taste andpleasure thanks to the unique combination of a lightcrispy wafer and delicious milk and hazelnut cream.

Today, almost forty

years after its creation, the brand name Kinder is still asynonym for unique natural products with controlled andguaranteed quality.These are not only controls carriedout inside the production plants, as they regard asystematic control on the selling points which is carriedout by the company’s specialized staff and whichguarantee to the consumer the freshness of the chosenproduct.

Recent developmentsEvery year the Ferrero Group, headed by Kinder, investssubstantial means in research, nourishing the impulse forproduct innovation. It is one of the key factors for successof the Kinder brand.

Kinder Happy Hippo is one of the latest Kinderinnovations, created in the year 2003. It is a snack with ahazelnut cream especially suitable for children, and, onlythree weeks after its launch, it became the leadingproduct on some European markets.

PromotionThe primary target of the Kinder promotional messagesare mothers of younger and older children, with childrenbeing only secondary targets.Their purpose is to transmitthe message of traditional values, quality and excellenceof the product preparation.

By following the expansion of consumers, Kinder has

surpassed in its development the feature of beingexclusively a food product for children and this affectedalso its marketing strategies. Ferrero needed to take intoconsideration the fact that its products were beingconsumed both by grown-ups and by children in thedevelopment phase. For this reason the messages ofsome products can accordingly be focused also on olderconsumers.

In its communication strategy Kinder focuses on twoareas: the classic above-the-line message and a greatnumber of special promotions, sponsorships andmarketing actions. On a global scale it produces internallymany publications and cartoons which reach theconsumers through different communication channels,Internet among one of them.An important promotionalrole is given to the international web page dedicated toKinder (www.magic-kinder.com).

Brand valuesKinder’s purpose is to offer consumers products andspecialties with a permanent value, immediatelyrecognizable and appreciated because of their specialfeatures representing an irreplaceable added value. Kinderdedicates its attention to quality and taste, not forgettingthe nutritional values of its products.These brand valuesare followed by good quality service like total care for thefreshness of the product, guaranteed by permanentcontrol over the packaging quality, the shelf life and thedistribution network.

Today the brand name Kinder is accompanied withvalues (family, emotions and child imagination at the frontline), together with constant balance between nutritionalqualities and taste.

www.magic-kinder.com

Kinder Surprise is a product made perfect thanksto the intuition of Michele Ferrero who in 1974came to the idea of spreading the magic ofEaster throughout the whole year.This is how alittle chocolate surprise egg was born,economical for every pocket, representing asmall everyday reward, a small everyday present.

Every day in the world about 4 million KinderSurprises are sold with a total value of 1,5 billionper year. Since the launch of Kinder Surprise,almost 30 billion Kinder Surprises have beensold, out of which 20 billion from 1990 till today.

The quantity share of the Kinder snacksrepresents almost one third of the total sweetsnacks market in Croatia (Source: ACNielsen2006.).

THINS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT...

Kinder

1994 20031998

Kinder ENG 12.03.2007 13:46 Page 137