HERE WE DOUGH AGAIN

You don’t mean Pillsbury as in the Doughboy do you?” said directory enquiries, looking for Pillsbury’s phone number in Minneapolis.

If such a chance comment is representative of British consumers, the future looks promising for Grand Metropolitan Foods UK as it prepares to resurrect the Pillsbury brand and its cartoon Doughboy in this country.

Like or loathe cute marketing icons, we will be seeing a lot more of the Doughboy in the near future. In the next three weeks GrandMet will unveil a range of goods building on Pillsbury’s heritage as a US milling company – possibly cake mixes, flour, or ready-to-eat bakery products.

The move is part of GrandMet’s corporate strategy of building global mega-brands, such as Häagen-Dazs, Green Giant and Old El Paso – all members of the Pillsbury division. The Pillsbury brand accounts for 25 per cent of the total $6bn (3.9bn) value of the division.

Outside North America, the brand is only available in Japan, Mexico and South Africa. But GrandMet is convinced it still has a high brand equity with British consumers, despite its repeated failures in the UK market, once in the mid-Seventies and again in the early Nineties.

Martin Jamieson, commercial director at GrandMet Foods UK, is reluctant to talk about the latest relaunch. But he says: “We are looking at the potential for Pillsbury in all markets, not least in the UK. It is one of the world’s leading food brands.

“There is a huge awareness of Pillsbury and the Doughboy because of previous activity. There’s a latent awareness. It has brand equity which lives on.”

Pillsbury’s UK resurrection will be backed by advertising, but Jamieson says the company is not using Leo Burnett, which handles Green Giant, Jus-Rol and Old El Paso in the UK and the Pillsbury division in the US.

Jamieson was appointed commercial director three months ago and the Pillsbury relaunch is clearly his baby. A recent restructure of GrandMet UK’s mar keting department split the responsibilities of Clive Whittaker, the former marketing director who left in March, between two people, giving greater prominence to Pillsbury.

Pillsbury was available in the mid-Seventies as a range of chilled dough products, then in 1989 the American business was bought by GrandMet for $5.75bn (3.6bn).

Two years later Pillsbury was reintroduced into the UK, but axed in 1994. The American imported croissants, breadtwists, turnovers, Danish whirls and cookies, which sounded so appetising and are so popular in the States and Canada, failed to catch on with the British.

Despite millions of pounds spent on marketing, including a TV campaign that covered 65 per cent of the country, the range was unable to secure enough repeat purchases to make the venture pay.

Marketing controller Dominic Harrison says: “The launch was only a test with regional advertising. The opportunity for refrigerated dough products was not big enough for the investment we might otherwise have made.”

Competition from quality patisseries, well-run in-store bakeries and an upgrading of packaged cakes exacerbated Pillsbury’s failure to establish itself among consumers. Cultural differences between UK and US bread eating habits were cited as the primary reason for its failure.

Nevertheless, the trade was surprised at the suddenness of GrandMet’s decision to withdraw the range. It appears a clean break was considered the best strategy, rather than letting the brand wither and die. The company kept its future options open by maintaining the name in the market, incorporating it onto the Jus-Rol range of frozen pastry products. It was so spectacularly unsuccessful last time some believe the brand was not damaged because consumers hadn’t noticed it was on the shelves and so didn’t miss it when it was pulled.

Tom Blackett, deputy chairman of brand consultancy Interbrand, says: “Pillsbury is not widely recognised by consumers as a failed brand. Its last launch hardly touched on the public’s consciousness.”

“Many people will remember it from 20 years ago, with its ads featuring the cheeky Doughboy.

It is a splendid brand, with pos itive imagery, and the Doughboy is a strong asset. He may be irritating as hell but other people will find him endearing. He differentiates the brand.

“GrandMet has bided its time after a minor setback. It paid a full price for the brand and has got to extract value from it.”

GrandMet’s first-half results show the US Pillsbury division trading strongly. GrandMet posted flat first-half profits, up only three per cent to 455m but Pillsbury made up for disappointing figures from the spirits division, having achieved operating profits of 240m, a rise of 47 per cent.

Since the mid-Eighties, when GrandMet was a jumble of businesses, ranging from opticians to drinks and jewellery-making, the group has concentrated on two big international branded sectors – food and drink.

Its corporate strategy aims to build 20 mega food and drink brands with international reach over the next decade. So far the company has about 12, but to succeed it must push its products beyond the US.

As one analyst says: “GrandMet makes 70 per cent of its profits from the US. It makes 20m profit from the whole of Europe. The UK Pillsbury relaunch is a drop in the ocean.”

With such a lop-sided global spread, GrandMet faces a tough time building international brands.

But it knows the potential value of innovation. If it did not try to push new products, it would never have launched Bailey’s, now the world’s third largest spirits brand.