Mondelez relaunches ‘Maynards Bassetts’ as one brand in adult candy push

Mondelez is relaunching Maynards Bassetts as one brand as part of an ongoing partnership in a bid to fight declining sales across the adult candy market while increasing its market share.

The entire adult candy range will come under the Maynards Bassetts branding, and will see a packaging redesign and launch of Bertie’s Jelly Mix to cement the relationship.

According to figures supplied by Mondelez, the new brand will be worth £127.9m and have a 18.4% share of the market. Katie Bashford, senior brand manager for Joyful Candy at Mondelez, told Marketing Week the majority of the £1.1bn candy market is driven by adults who buy products for themselves. While Nielsen data shows the overall market grew 1.4% year on year in December 2015, the adult candy sector is in decline.

She explained: “While Mondelez is the biggest player, shoppers are buying less and are doing so less frequently. With that in mind, we’re relaunching Maynards Bassetts as one brand to reinvigorate the adult candy market and drive the category. There is a definite potential for growth.”

The new range will be in shops from February onwards as part of a soft launch, with a £4 million above the line campaign planned for April. The campaign, which is created in partnership with Wieden+Kennedy, will be rolled out across TV, in store, digital and social.

While the creative is still being kept under wraps, Bashford said the brand is keen to make “quirky Britishness” central to the creative. The British public should also expect more product innovations in the future.

She concluded: “What I can tell you for definite is that we’re not focusing on the master brand – the campaign will be very product-led. We’re very much focusing on forgotten favourites like wine gums and jelly babies.

“This partnership is ongoing. We’re working on an innovation pipeline as far out as 2019. So the business is committed to getting behind these brands. This is just the start.”

Recommended