Are Consumers Souring on Chobani? Is the Brand at a Tipping Point?

In the matter of only a few years Chobani, the leading Greek Yogurt brand in America, has transformed itself from a small challenger brand into a $1 billion power-player that is giving Yoplait and Dannon a run for their money in the dairy aisle. And in full disclosure, I'm a huge fan of how Chobani built its brand (the unique product/packaging, the challenger brand refusing to back down to the traditional yogurt powerhouses, the innovation, the CEO's vision, etc.), not to mention the delicious product. There's no doubt, Chobani's rise has been magical, with it looking like the brand could do no wrong, that is until recently . . .

Chobani has hit a number of stumbling blocks over the last few months that risk alienating core consumers and challenging the long-term health of the brand. During its meteoric rise, Chobani built a tremendous groundswell of passionate, loyal core consumers. This consumer-base allowed the brand to grow organically through strong consumer advocacy, without having to spend large sums of money on traditional marketing to compete with Dannon and Yoplait. However, there are now cracks in that consumer-base. It's astonishing how many passionate negative comments have appeared on Chobani's facebook page over the last few months. Yes, there are a ton of passionate positive ones too to offset the negative advocacy, but still its troubling for the longer-term brand health. Taking a closer look at the different brand stumbles suggests the cumulative effect of all of these stumbles should be alarming for Chobani.

• Chobani issued a recall after finding a portion of its yogurt was tainted by mold, which caused over 100 consumers to become sick with symptoms including nausea and cramps. While the majority of consumers are willing to forgive and forget assuming this was a one time mistake and the company appears to have handled the mini-crisis with sincerity, events like this start chipping away at a brands trust - especially a brand with a slogan of "nothing but good". Take a read of a few of the several hundred facebook posts:

• Consumers became aware that Chobani is not sure if the grain fed to the cows producing the milk contains GMOs (genetically modified organisms). The GMO finding is very interesting because it again directly clashes with Chobani's promise of "nothing but good". As the facebook posts below illustrate, this realization is upsetting and alienating many of its core consumers. That said, the learning would be far more damaging to short-term brand sales if Chobani was still a small brand that relied on distribution from Whole Foods and other natural and premium grocery stores. Given a bulk of brand sales now come from the likes of Walmart and mainstream grocery stores, the more mainstream consumers are unlikely to blink much of an eye, at least in the short-term.    

• Chobani is downsizing its product from 6.0 to 5.3 ounces, while holding price constant equating to effectively a 12% price increase. Let's just say consumers are not going to be happy about this. Look at a few comments of the hundreds from Chobani's facebook page:

• Whole Foods announced it would de-list Chobani by early 2014. Whole Foods decision to de-list Chobani is really not a surprise given both the GMO issue as well as the brand transitioning from a unique, premium product to a mainstream, mass market mainstay. Chobani grew to over $1 billion in large part by expanding distribution from Whole Foods into mainstream grocery stores, Target, Walmart, Costco, Sam's, and many other retailers. Whole Foods' strategy is to charge a premium price on a differentiated product assortment from more mainstream channels, so as Chobani grew it became at odds with this core strategy. Whole Foods actually held distribution on Chobani longer than it typically does with most brands that mainstream - likely in large part because of Chobani's loyal consumer base and the brand's initial reluctance to discount its products in traditional grocery, mass, and club channels. These combination of factors allowed Whole Foods to maintain its margin integrity.  However, as the yogurt wars heated up and Chobani expanded production capacity (believe it or not for many months Chobani was actually selling faster than the company could manufacture it), it appears that Chobani has started playing the promotion game to fend off competition and win back consumers from the product recall. Overall, losing Whole Foods doesn't just mean lost sales, but is also another challenge to the brand image and keeping its original core consumer group.

Net-net, the combination of all of these brand stumbles will have a short-term impact on the business (e.g., the lost volume during the from the product recall, Whole Foods de-listing, downsizing), but more importantly, I believe they represent a longer-term tipping point for the brand where it will start losing an important sub-set of its passionate core consumers. These core consumers were likely some of the original supports of the brand, early advocates that spread word of mouth, and helped fuel the organic brand growth. These consumers shop at Whole Foods, believed "nothing but good" meant safe (no contamination) and pure (no GMOs), and were willing to pay more than traditional yogurt for Chobani because they felt like they were getting more from the brand (both literally an additional 0.7 ounces and figuratively in an emotional connection to the brand). Can Chobani win these consumers back before its too late?  Potentially, but to do so would require a shorter-term financial hit to the brand. I'd anticipate these consumers finding, latching onto, and starting to champion a new premium yogurt brand in Whole Foods' dairy section and helping to start building that brand. In fact, it looks like it's already starting . . .