The "Anti-Ad" Ad Campaign

In your minds, take a mental journey back to 2013. Go beyond the headlining news stories that plagued the country. Think broader than the reality television drama that that may have ensued. Examine the trends...The world of Crossfit was at its peak in popularity. Paleo diets were on a strong incline among Americans. People were searching for healthier options, ways of easily making their lifestyles fresher and more active.

 - Where there is a need, a smart business person shall go - 

Fast-forward a few years. Peter Rahal and his childhood best friend have developed unique flavored bars packed with protein, made with main ingredients including egg whites, nuts and dates, all because they believed that there could be a healthier, more straightforward snack for the health conscious consumer. Now in 2018, we see that this product has become so hot that a large corporation ( Kellogg Co. ) ended up buying the startup company for about $600 million.

HOW WAS THIS COMPANY SO SUCCESSFUL?

Though initially developed to fit the desires of CrossFit devotees, the brand has gained enough traction in the marketing world to acquire shelf space at retailers such as "Trader Joe's, Walmart and Whole Foods, along with doing steady sales online through its own site and others including Amazon." They had listened to the groundswells, as authors Li and Bernoff suggest in their book about tapping into the systems of social media. Through this, they discovered what people were talking about and searching for, and crafted a product that would come up when any of those popular terms were searched. 

"Make a bar with no bull sh!t" was essentially their goal as the founders of the company began developing the protein snacks in their parent's basement. It was a 'dumb ass idea' that was so aggressively simple that big food companies would never come up with it. The RXBar CEO, Rahal, who sold the first bars door-to-door to gyms in Chicago, said the company’s success was based on its product’s transparency. For example, in 2015, RXBar updated to sleeker, often brighter labels that highlight only the main ingredients in the bars, with the name of the brand being smaller than the ingredient list. 

But it wasn't just their bold packaging that caught my eye. It was actually their recent, quirky new ad campaign.  Since the beginning, the company has lived by the motto "No B.S." The protein bar has now merged its mission with its marketing plan. No gimmicks. No stereotypical convincing of how healthy the product is or how much energy it will give you. No stereotypical slo-mo video clips of nuts and chocolate being tossed together like every other snack advertisement. Just the product and a sponsor. 

The sponsor? American rapper and musician Tracy Lauren Marrow, but more popularly known as Ice-T. He's not the most likely choice, perhaps. But, of course, that's the point. The ad has a shock factor while also helping the brand to appeal to more than just the millennial social technographic, because he is recognizable to those who recall raps from the 1980s and 1990s. He’s an unconventional voice in this space of the market

Ice-T has been shot in a number of the RxBar ads, as shown above. The commercials feature the phrase "No B.S.", appearing in large letters beside an RXBar package. The package is actually a 'door' that the rapper pops out of and delivers a blatantly shocking line, breaking the fourth wall and connecting directly with consumers. The commercial that initially caught my attention was one in which he simply puts it as "Hi, I'm famous, and this is a commercial." Personally, when I saw the commercial for the first time, I had no idea who the self-proclaimed famous person was which caused me to Google "RXBar Commercial famous person" only to find the following as the first hit on the search engine platform...

 ^My Search Engine Results

They have used humor to build relationships with people of all social techno-graphics. Their motto is not only bold and catches attention, but builds trust and loyalty with customers through transparency and honesty. These 15 second commercials have gone viral. 

The CEOs listened, and the groundswell responded think that people appreciate the uniqueness of the RXBar new advertisements. With it's foot already in the groundswell with social media influencers and a popular ad campaign that is creating search engine hits, Kellogg CEO Steve Cahillane believes that with the product's strong millennial consumption and diversified presence on many e-commerce websites, the RXBar has "perfectly positioned to perform well against future food trends.”

What do you think about this bold and brash marketing strategy? Do you think they will gain the 'older generation' of less health conscious consumers just by putting in an older sponsor? Or do you think that the blunt harshness of the commercials will turn away the consumers from the baby boomer era?