Even though Squeeze Stix is a latecomer to the tube phenomenon, Tom Vierhile, executive editor of Productscan Online, which tracks new products, considers it "innovative, because it turns peanut butter from an ingredient into a snack by virtue of its packaging."
The success of Go-Gurt made it easy for Skippy to get the corporate go-ahead to develop the Squeeze Stix -- even though some adults have had trouble with the concept. As Zimmerman said, "We heard from a lot of adults: 'You eat this alone?' They were desperately trying to find a host food to eat with it. But kids are so familiar with the whole tube-food phenomenon that when we did research, we saw they had no qualms about putting it right into their mouths. They love peanut butter so much they want to eat it straight."
The product that's in the seven-inch-long tube is not that much different from what's in the jar. "We had to process it a little differently to get it into the tubes, but it's the same creamy consistency" and has the same nutritional value as the spread in the jar, Zimmerman said. It comes in two flavors: creamy and chocolate. (That's probably because the chunky version is more of an adult-acquired taste.)
To make Squeeze Stix a success, Skippy officials knew they had to market it to both parents and kids. But as any kid -- or parent -- knows, these two groups don't always agree on what's cool or good to eat.
Yet to market to one group and not the other would be a mistake, said Dave Siegel, president of Wonder Group, a youth-marketing advertising consulting firm. Siegel cited the experience of Ragu (another Unilever Bestfoods product) when it introduced Ragu Express, a pasta-and-sauce meal that's ready to eat in 31/2 minutes. Sales of the new product were good, but below the company's expectations because Ragu targeted its ads almost entirely to moms.
"If you're going to sell to children, you have to target them because today's moms ask their kids what they want," Siegel said. "They don't buy products that their kids don't want, and kids won't want a product unless they know about it." By marketing to kids, Siegel said, "people say we're capitalizing on kids, taking advantage of them. We're not; we're capitalizing on today's family, and in that family the child is more involved in the purchasing and decision-making process" than ever before.
That may stem from marketing, but marketers like to say it's because of the parents, many of whom are Gen Xers, the disenfranchised population that is now making sure that their children's generation is enfranchised.
Zimmerman doesn't really see any obstacles in getting today's parents to buy Squeeze Stix. After all, she noted, peanut butter is "packed with protein."
Food manufacturers, especially those marketing to kids, are on the defensive these days as recent government statistics show that 15 percent of children and adolescents are overweight, up from 11 percent in a little more than a decade. But Zimmerman makes no apology for her product. "Compared to other options," she said, "most moms are happy as clams if kids are eating peanut butter."
From the beginning of the project, Zimmerman added, "there was a mandate" to come up with a character to represent Squeeze Stix, because characters are "a very obvious cue" that the product is for kids. The question was what kind of character.
