Happy Easter everyone! It’s just not Easter without PEEPS®! The PEEPS® Brand has
been around since 1953 and is a must-have for the Easter basket. The yellow chick
is the icon that everyone knows however, the classic pastel-colored marshmallows
covered in sugar are certainly polarizing. Consumers either love them or hate them.
If they love PEEPS®, don’t mess with them. If they hate PEEPS®, there is no way
they would ever eat any PEEPS® product. How does a brand stay true to its heritage
while evolving to appeal to a larger audience? In this podcast, we will learn how
brands can grow through innovation with their core consumers while attracting new
users to the franchise.
Nate Pieratt: Who's the key target for Peeps?
Matt Pye: The primary purchaser of Peeps are women who have kid or grandkids,
and then obviously once it gets into the home, everybody of all ages loves Peeps.
When you think about those women with kids who are doing the primary purchasing,
they break up into five groups when it comes to Easter candy. There's the Easter
as tradition group, that probably represents about 22% of all the Easter buyers
out there. These are loyalists. They have their baskets and there's no doubt they're
purchasing Peeps candy. Then there's that crowd that's Easter is enjoyable. That's
probably another 26% of the Easter buyers out there, but they like a wide variety
and different things in their Easter baskets. The next group is the Easter is candy
group. There's a lot of other categories and products that have crept into the
Easter basket, but these folks, they represent a small percentage, about 6% of
all Easter buyers, but ironically, they represent about 26% of all the purchases.
They've very influential. It's all about candy, they only want candy, and it's
a core candy group. And then there are the Easter is on my to-do list, it's more
of a have to and not a want to. They understand, they've got kids, it's Easter,
"I've got to go buy some candy." And that's about 25% of the Easter buyers. Lastly,
there's Easter is beside the point. Candy's not a real big deal, Easter's not a
real big deal, but maybe it's more impulse. They'll see Easter candy, they'll buy
a few things. There's no doubts that between the Easter is tradition, Easter is
enjoyable, and Easter is candy, these three of those five groups are really the
most important, and between those three groups, they represent over 70% of the
sale.