It's Not Magic, It's Positioning

I can’t remember the last time I’ve applauded a frozen food manufacturer for its marketing prowess, let alone any item sold in the supermarket.  They all seem to rely on discounting and couponing to the point that they start to sound the same.  It wasn’t until I took a closer look at the sales numbers within Nestle’s 2012 Annual Report that my eyes opened wide: $600,000,000 in 2012 alone for DiGiorno. That’s over a half-billion dollars in frozen pizza!

So how’d they do it?  Positioning.  Plain and simple, we all know DiGiorno Pizza is a frozen offering that can be found in nearly any grocer’s freezer aisle surrounded by countless other frozen pizzas.  However, DiGiorno did not position themselves against their competition within the frozen food category, but instead against the likes of Pizza Hut and company in the made fresh, delivery category.  Their tagline, “It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno,” allowed the brand to shift the set it was considered against, enabling them to ultimately rule the frozen pizza category.  Most anyone can agree that delivery is better than frozen pizza. By drawing the connection DiGiorno was able to frame its competitive set as fresh-made delivery, which in turn imparts certain qualities to their product. Today DiGiorno has established itself in a class of its own (with ~30% share of the frozen pizza category), apart from other frozen pies, as a more convenient high quality pizza.