Pladis is aiming to expand appeal for McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes by launching a new flavour and venturing beyond fruit for the first time in its history.
A marriage between one of Britain’s favourite sweets and best-loved snacks, its latest limited-edition launch – McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes Cola Bottle Flavour – is aimed at younger shoppers “seeking innovative, unique flavour combinations”.
McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes Cola Bottle Flavour will feature the brand’s familiar light sponge and dark, crackly chocolate. The tangy orange centre will be switched out for a distinctive cola bottle jelly. This new flavour variation adds to the brand’s existing line-up including: Raspberry, pineapple, cherry, passion fruit and lemon & lime. The new flavour will also launch in Cake Bar format.
“Our Original Jaffa Cakes are a store-cupboard staple for 7.1m UK households, and we’ve been building on this success for years by adding a range of fruity flavours to our portfolio,” says Adam Woolf, marketing director – McVitie’s at Pladis UK&I. “But there’s huge appetite among the next generation of snacking shoppers for something genuinely new and different – and as the original cake in the biscuit aisle, we know a thing or two about doing something different. So, as well as catering to shopper demand, our latest launch is the perfect embodiment of the playful, out of the ordinary essence that’s Jaffa Cakes’ heartland.
“Inspired by the enduring popularity of both McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes and Cola Bottle sweets, McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes Cola Bottle Flavour is tailormade for those who’ve got the bottle to branch out and give bold new flavour combinations a go. We’re also very confident this will appeal to shoppers, having come out on top as the best-performing flavour amongst 18–34 year-olds in our pre-launch testing.”
A McVitie’s Jaffa Cake is iconic. The orange peel logo is memorable and distinctive. The name, the design, the brand has always been intrinsically linked to oranges.
So, surely a giant leap into cola bottle flavour [NB cola bottles are a much-loved sweet in the UK] is a risk. And this on the back of various other fruit flavour variants in recent years. This is just another insight into how brands evolve and stretch and how a good brand is more than a product. Stretching brands is a risky business, but this probably works for Jaffa Cakes because, whilst orange is still at the heart of the brand and critical to the long-term core, it is strong enough to offer consumers a few interesting alternatives without losing its essence. As the above highlights, a Jaffa Cake is as much about the light sponge and crackly chocolate which creates its distinctive mouth feel as anything else. No consumer is going to struggle to accept other flavours.
We are sure not every new Jaffa Cake variant will match the amazing long-term success of the original, but we know from the Brands Group’s report on ‘Innovation in UK Grocery‘ that distinctive innovation – and cola bottle flavoured Jaffa Cakes would fit the definition – helps bring in new consumers and helps keep the core brand front-of-mind and relevant. Occasionally, one will create a new long-term success story.