Take It to Heart with Corazonas Foods

06 Apr 2011

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Corazonas Foods, based in Los Angeles, owns a distinction in an FDA-backed claim that a key ingredient of its snacks actually does make them heart-healthy by lowering cholesterol. Initially, though, even the line’s most avid fans didn’t fully grasp how much good the snacks were doing for them. They were happy just to think of Corazonas chips and bakery squares as diet-smart indulgences that tasted delicious.

Many foods, dietary supplements, and nutraceuticals promise to deliver health benefits, but rare is the product that can validate the promise with clinical research recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In the increasingly health-conscious retail food business, a point of differentiation simply doesn’t get better than this.

Corazonas Foods, based in Los Angeles, owns such a distinction in an FDA-backed claim that a key ingredient of its snacks actually does make them heart-healthy by lowering cholesterol. Initially, though, even the line’s most avid fans didn’t fully grasp how much good the snacks were doing for them. They were happy just to think of Corazonas chips and bakery squares as diet-smart indulgences that tasted delicious.

Now, thanks to a methodical re-evaluation of the package design, the cholesterol-lowering benefit of Corazonas snacks is as obvious as the big heart that graces each of the new pouches and bags. The redesigned line now stands unmistakably apart from everything else in the overcrowded snack-food aisle.

For Ramona Cappello, founder and CEO of Corazonas Foods, the redesign wasn’t only about getting more attention at retail—it was about honoring the cause that prompted her to launch the business in the first place.

Campaign against a killer
“My company,” she writes at the Corazonas website, “is my revenge against heart disease, starting with its number-one foot soldier, high cholesterol.” Heart disease, aggravated by high cholesterol, killed both of her grandfathers and, after two “silent” heart attacks, her father. The latter’s best efforts to treat his condition with diet and exercise weren’t enough to save him, despite his sacrificing favorite foods and the flavors that went with them.

“I never forgot that it changed him,” says Cappello, who started the Los Angeles-based company in 2005 on the principle that “having high cholesterol doesn’t have to remove the joy of life.” Research led her to a way of combining heart-healthiness with taste enjoyment in plant sterols, a.k.a. phytosterols—naturally occurring, plant-based substances that reduce the absorption of cholesterol in the small intestine.

Cappello, who says that Corazonas Foods holds an exclusive license to a patented process for infusing snack foods with plant sterols, can cite more than 140 clinical studies confirming that the ingredient lowers “bad” LDL cholesterol in the blood by up to 14%. Better yet, there’s an FDA health claim—a formal endorsement—for the benefits of phytosterols that Corazonas Foods has always printed on its packaging.

“We’re the only snack that lowers cholesterol with plant sterols,” Cappello says. The problem was that this unique attribute tended to escape the attention of consumers, even those who were already buying the snacks. “They thought of us as a chip company first, and a health company second,” Cappello says. “We thought that the message was clear on the packaging, but the consumers didn’t think so.”

“Two Weeks to Truth”
Making sure that the message didn’t hide in plain sight became the objective for LeeReedy, a Denver, CO, brand and marketing agency that specializes in cutting straight to the chase in assignments for clients like Corazonas Foods that are “on fire.” These clients, says Eric Kiker, partner, copywriter, and strategy director, want to move the needle in a hurry and this makes them good candidates for an exercise that LeeReedy calls “Two Weeks to Truth”: a short but intensive review aimed at pinpointing and prioritizing the essence of a brand.

In Corazonas’ case, the review produced 27 new packaging concepts that were eventually narrowed down to one. The entire process took 10 weeks, and in that time both the agency and the client learned just how underappreciated the line’s cholesterol-lowering potential had been.

The original packaging did a good job of making a Corazonas snack look like a delicious chip, says Kiker, but when it came to the part about plant sterols, “people just weren’t getting it”—including superfans who can recite every other dietary benefit that the snacks provided.

The redesign puts plant sterols front and center with a tagline that declares the benefit and a footnote that references the FDA health claim. Graphically, the cue is a richly colored heart that dominates the front of the package as it unequivocally declares, “Love Your Heart; Love the Taste.” Additional icons cite the snacks’ whole-grain content and remind consumers of the cholesterol-lowering power of fruits and vegetables.

Benefits in balance
These motifs, vivid against the white matte film of the bags and pouches, now help all 13 Corazonas products (three flavors of tortilla chips, five kinds of potato chips, five varieties of oatmeal squares) bid for greater visibility in the snack-food aisle. The idea, says Kiker, was to recalibrate from the “90% great taste, 10% heart health” message of the original packaging to the 50-50 emphasis that the two selling propositions now receive.

Focus group testing confirmed that the redesign brought the cholesterol-lowering portion of the message the recognition it warranted. For the client, however, the new look took a bit of getting used to.

“We were very open about how to communicate the point of differentiation,” Cappello says. Nevertheless, she admits that the company had a bias against relying on a heart because the symbol is so commonly seen. But she also couldn’t deny that a heart and its connotations resonate powerfully with consumers. What’s more, according to Cappello, no hearts exist on other packages in the snack-food category where Corazonas Foods are found.

Cappello says that when the redesigned packages began appearing at retail, the company saw an immediate impact, measurable and clear, in store adoption and sales. That momentum is helping Corazonas Foods to expand to national distribution from its West Coast base.

LeeReedy continues to assist Corazonas Foods in its market outreach, in particular targeting people who see diet and lifestyle changes as better solutions for heart health than the pharmaceutical alternatives. As these consumers have learned the hard way, says Kiker, “it’s no fun to live with cholesterol.” But now, one glance at a package from Corazonas Foods tells them that great taste can be among the proper rewards of choosing snacks made specifically to take cholesterol out of the body—and out of the picture.

TO YOUR HEALTH
Eight ways Corazonas emphasizes “heart-healthy”

The secondary slogan “freedom to snack” is now locked in with the Corazonas logo.
The heart has the dominant role for the brand, centered on the package like most of the design elements.
The new primary slogan resides inside the graphical heart, reinforcing its message.
A stamp-like Whole Grain icon from WholeGrainsCouncil.org endorses both the package claims and the product.
The primary benefit claim “proven to help lower cholesterol” is understated, but seriously and clearly presented.
The white matte finish conveys a purity, freshness, and healthiness in an otherwise indulgent category.
A secondary, trademarked icon touts the cholesterol-lowering power of the fruits and vegetables inside.
The FDA health claim text is large enough to garner attention for health-conscious shoppers.