Are they nuts?

According to Ad Age, Psy will be cracking Wonderful Pistachios gangnam style at some point during the Super Bowl.

Here's my question. Does the celebrity campaign actually build the Wonderful brand or just sell pistachios?



On the surface it doesn't seem any different from Planter's branding peanuts, but it is different for a couple of reasons.

The product is not any different than I can purchase in bulk in the produce section of my supermarket. The packaging isn't incredibly convenient nor does the brand make any other promise to differentiate their nuts from those I currently enjoy. Are they fresher? Tastier? More sustainably raised? Anything?

The other challenge is the brand name itself and the way it's used. "Wonderful pistachios" is exactly how I feel about the nuts I buy in bulk. To be honest, when I first saw these spots I thought they were for a grower's association, not a consumer package goods company. It wasn't until I looked more closely at the package and saw the heart in the logotype that I realized these pistachios were from the same company as Pom Wonderful.

They're going to shell out (badumbump) $3.5 million dollars for thirty seconds of airtime on the Super Bowl, pay Psy a healthy fee, and spend a few bucks on production. Personally, I'd try to do something with my product to give people more of a reason to choose it over the bulk alternative before I spent that kind of money.

As the lead brand in the category, doing things to grow the category makes sense. If they had a product that actually differentiated itself, however, that media spend would be a lot more effective.