The Nutella to our Spoons

#NikitaSpeaks

February, 2018

Sometimes, a brand can have a strong presence in its consumer’s world that the consumer forgets to look it as a brand and more as an experience or a memory. Nutella is one long-standing brand that has transformed from a simple jar of chocolate to a breakfast staple for many. Undeniably, a guilty pleasure for most, the Nutella jar is associated with countless recipes, desserts or just dunking into the smooth chocolate with a spoon for a mouthful scoop. This is one brand that has managed to etch its taste in our brain, and has given a name and association to chocolate.

Nutella is one long-standing brand that has transformed from a simple jar of chocolate to a breakfast staple for many. Undeniably, a guilty pleasure for most, the Nutella jar is associated with countless recipes, desserts or just dunking into the smooth chocolate with a spoon for a mouthful scoop. This is one brand that has managed to etch its taste in our brain, and has given a name and association to chocolate.

For many, a chocolate is a chocolate, but if you try to recall any one taste of chocolate, you will be battling in your mind for the different brands and variants. A chocolate could be rich, dark, creamy, salty, various degrees of sweet or bitter. Nutella has the distinct flavour of hazelnut that makes us instantly recognise the brand whether we have just bitten into a pancake, or a Ferrero chocolate. This marks Nutella as a brilliant example of ingredient branding where a café can simply have an assured sale when it places a dish with Nutella’s name on its menu. Many dessert brands riding on the trust and quality factor of Nutella brand get more leverage and in return take their brand to the top quicker.

The underlying form of the hazelnut spread – which would later be called Nutella – was started and concocted during the 1940s by Pietro Ferrero, a pâtissier and author of the Italian organization Ferrero.

At the time, there was an extreme deficiency of cocoa bean supply because of World War II rationing policy. So as to conquer this lack, Ferrero chose to supplant cocoa beans with hazelnuts, which were plenteous in the Piedmont area in northwest Italy so as to make a spread with a taste comparative as a chocolate spread. The first form of Nutella was classified "Pasta Gianduja". Pasta in Italian means spread and Gianduja is the name of a famous street carnival character in the locale. Gianduja's figure additionally showed up on the first advertisements for the product. Pasta Gianduja was at first strong and was promoted as loaves enclosed by tinfoil with the goal that moms could put them between two cuts of bread to make sandwiches. Nonetheless, numerous youngsters discarded the bread and ate just the Pasta Gianduja portion. Subsequently, Ferrero adjusted the products texture into a spread sold in containers with the goal that it could be spread on bread. In the years that followed, the products name was changed to Supercrema Gianduja and since 1964 it was called Nutella.

Nutella achieved success from the day of its launch, which prompted Italian food stores to offer a service known as “The Smearing”. Italian children went to the local store holding a slice of bread for the storekeeper to dip a knife in the large jar of Nutella on the counter and sell them a “smearing” of Nutella on the slice of bread in their hand. Nowadays, the brand is sold in over 75 countries around the world and ranked as the number one spread in Europe. In recent years, its popularity has been increasing in the developing nations worldwide.

The evolution of Nutella continues in the present day market as well. In India, in the year 2015, Nutella started a month long campaign that allowed Indian consumers to buy a personalized Nutella jar with their own names and content printed in it. This was done at select stores with on spot printing to build a stronger bond between consumers and the brand. In one move, Nutella converted hundreds of thousands of consumers into Nutella Brand Ambassadors.

The series of Nutella recipes is not something we are unaware of. Apart from restaurants whipping up their own unique creations with Nutella, the brand themselves promote a series on their webpage called “Recipes with NUTELLA”, featuring a choice of diverse dishes through which Nutella can be consumed. It takes away from Nutella being solely a bread spread, and becoming an ingredient for numerous preparations.

We applaud the smearing success of Nutella as a brand, the one which has its own day! Happy World Nutella Day!