The First Drop: Munchkin Marketing

If there’s one scheduled feature that causes our team to draw bendy straws, it’s our annual look at the state of kid’s drinks.

It’s just a confusing category; it’s not like kids are physically incapable of drinking most things, or that, booze and THC aside, there are actual federal laws on the books that make them unable to purchase most of them. (Even energy drinks, the caffeinated subject of much Congressional and pediatric finger-wagging, aren’t subject to any kind of legal restrictions at the federal or state level, although some municipalities and retail chains have put bans on sales to children under 18. But that’s the vast minority.)

So for the most part, that means that if it’s in the hands of a kid, even if it isn’t prescriptively a “kid’s drink,” it’s nevertheless that kid’s drink.

Until there’s any kind of legal segmentation, then, the defining quality of these products as being for kids lies with the marketer – who at least defines it as part of their market building – or with that ultimate decision maker, the purchaser.

On the marketing side, there seem to be a couple of tried-and-true variations.

One of them we’ll call the “Happy Meal” school of thought: make sure the product comes with or is inside of a toy or a licensing deal. Brands like superhero-topped collectibles Good2Grow and Sesame Street licensee Apple and Eve have spent years hanging around those neighborhoods, building enviable businesses under the aegis of those even stronger media properties. More than a decade ago, Good2Grow even pulled off the neat trick of making its products appear much healthier, pulling out some sugar and changing a lot of its branding away from what then-CMO Carl Sweat called “liquid candy.”

We’ll call the next “Stuffing the Lunchbox.” Last year, I wrote a story for this magazine about the seeming unconquerability of the Capri-Sun pouch, and while it was enjoyable to get to explore the way that the brand has maintained its position, we’re talking about a brand that is decades old. The only brand like Capri-Sun that has made significant gains in recent years is Honest Kids – itself largely pouch-bound – and which is, let’s face it, a knockoff with a better ingredient deck. If it someday catches Capri-Sun, it won’t be because it did anything worse than fail to adapt its recipe quickly enough to changing times; as it is, the run has been outstanding.

There’s also the “Kids are Adults Too!” approach, which our intrepid Brad Avery writes about in our kids beverage feature this month (Brad’s straw was the bendiest). Here we see brands taking the kinds of functions and features and dropping them into kid-size concentrations of ingredients or else marketing them with a bit of a kid-focused attitude. We’re seeing that in everything from NO CAP! Soda Pop to Koia Kids protein shakes, and they’re the descendants of Nestlé Quik and Yoo-hoo.

Sometimes these are pitched towards parents (that’s the functional side) and sometimes it’s toward the kids (that’s the fun side).

For a long time, the idea that a finicky kid would actually drink something that an adult gave them allowed the growth of the “Lesser Evil” school of marketing to parents. That has evolved a bit – while it might once have been the realm of the full-sugar orange juice, or the fortified Sunny D, now it’s more of a “free from” situation. These can lead to something of a straddle for adults, who might be more inclined to throw a LaCroix or Talking Rain or even a Vitaminwater into the lunchbox for a hit of flavor. Move forward in age and things start to change. The outer edges of the range can bring in anything from a Frappuccino to a Diet Coke as kids start to enjoy the wonders of caffeine. Could a Red Bull be far behind?

These are all fairly legitimate brand strategies from where I sit, but here’s where things get complicated. As those who have kids know, it’s just often hard to determine the ultimate consumer: some households will let the kids drive the decision, while in others the adult controls the shopping cart. As kids age up, they may become more active in the decision, but the age target of a beverage – much like cereal, snacks, and Hostess Cupcakes – lies more in what’s allowed than what’s defined.

I’m an empty-nester as of August, so I think a lot about my kids, and I remember they were at various ages. The problem is that those ages are temporary. Like clothes, habits and ways of eating are outgrown. Milk turns into Sunny D; water to Gatorade; OJ to AriZona. Depending on social habits, economic situation, and so many other factors, it’s tough to build a drink that hits the age just right and doesn’t pander. So beware the idea, entrepreneurs, that you’ve invented the perfect solution.

That 12-year-old might slug chocolate milk now, but when she hits middle school, will she go searching for a Celsius? Your business plan might depend on it.