2. Executive Summary:
Life Savers are refreshing and tasteful mints that are packaged in a way that allows you to enjoy
the mint yourself and share the bliss with others! Life Savers are packed together in a large bag
that enables a generous distribution. We want to emphasize the positive benefits that Life Savers
have to offer in order to increase sales and create more brand awareness. While working closely
with our client, we have devised numerous advertising tactics in order to reach our goal. We plan
to produce print and Internet ads, TV commercials, and billboards in order to reach our target
audience effectively. Our brand activation ideas will work hand in hand with our advertising in
order to reach the primary goal as well. In order to reposition Life Savers it is extremely vital to
express to our target audience that Life Savers is not only a revitalizing treat, but a mint that you
can share with those you care about.
Overview:
Mints are usually associated with making your breath clean and fresh. However, for this campaign,
we wanted to focus on another benefit that Life Savers has. Our main goal is to position Life Savers
as a mint that is worth sharing or in other words “Made to share”. According to our research, our
target market consists of women ages 18-49. Our research participants expressed that they were
likely to share their mints. By repositioning Life Savers as a mint that is worth sharing we hope
to create more brand awareness and allow people to spread the word about Life Savers. We plan
to implement different advertising strategies in order to accomplish our communication goal and
also increase sales by 3%. With a $10 million dollar budget, I.O.N. Advertising is ready for this
campaign to flourish and be successful.
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3. I.O.N. Advertising, short for In Other News Advertising, is an advertising agency that was established in 2011. With a total of
five dedicated employees, I.O.N. Advertising has efficiently and effectively worked to achieve success for each of their clients. I.O.N.
Advertising stops at nothing. I.O.N. Advertising will never succumb to any hardships. The team works together to create a communica-
tion and sales goal for their client. Once the goal is established I.O.N is able to research the client’s target market. When the target
market is determined, I.O.N. Advertising sinks their claws into creative concepts and generates various ideas that will work hand in
hand with their initial goal. I.O.N. comes full circle and will not stop until the client is completely content and happy.
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7. Competitive Forces
The mint market has been and continues to be a fairly consistent and favorable market. Life Saver’s main competitors are Altoids,
TicTacs, Mentos, Icebreakers, and Certs.
Economic Forces
In these tough economic times, shoppers want the best and most for their money. Life Savers mints are offered in bulk and personal
size packaging, allowing consumers to have diversity in their options. The bulk bag is a more economic option that offers individually
wrapped mints. The Life Savers “roll” provides a quick mint for individuals and tends to be a more impulsive purchase.
Sociocultural Forces
In our current society, people are heavily concerned with cleanliness and sanitary conditions. Hand sanitizer is now offered in most
public places and it is not unusual for someone to have a portable hand sanitizer in their bag. Life Savers is one of the only brands
that offers individually wrapped mints guaranteeing cleanliness. Since the mints are guaranteed to be clean, consumers will be more
likely to share them.
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8. Marketing Objective
Our main marketing objective is to increase sales by 3% by the end of this campaign.
Advertising Objective
The primary communication goal is to create a 65% awareness of Life Savers mints for women ages 18-49. Due to the fact that the com-
prehension has dropped 60% it is imperative to stay on track with our goal.
Time Frame
Our plan will be to implement this campaign over the course of a year. The campaign will commence January of 2013.
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9. I.O.N. advertising was given a budget of $10,000,000 to create an effective campaign for Life
Saver mints. Our final budget that we calculated was $9,384,107 which is $615,893 under our
given budget. We have divided our budget among four different media with the results of:
Media Cost Budget Summary:
Television $3,180,000
Magazines $2,798,933
Internet $450,000
Billboards $1,975,174
Production $980,000
Total Campaign Cost: $9,384,107
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10. • Find out what consumers think about Life Savers and mints in general through
quantitative methods
• Determine Life Savers competitors and compare their advertising strategies
• Find out history of Life Savers marketing
• Utilize MRI for insight into the Life Savers mint’s target market and their media
channel preferences
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11. Primary Research
Through an online survey, I.O.N advertising gathered the perceptions of both male and females. Our survey yielded 138
responses. Of these respondents, 82.6% were female, 94.9% were between the ages of 18-24, and 61.5% were employed. The
survey asked what emotional and functional benefits mints provide. Our survey found that consumers buy mints because they enjoy
the taste and the product makes their mouth feel clean. Contrary to our initial belief, consumers do not buy mints because they
provide a feeling of attractiveness or heightened esteem.
The majority of respondents said that they did not care whether their mints were individually wrapped or not. However,
92.5% of our sample said that cleanliness was important or strongly important to them. 81.1% of respondents said that they share
their mints and when asked if they accept mints from other people, 84.9% also agreed or strongly agreed. These findings provide
an opportunity since respondents regularly share mints but also want to be clean. Since Life Savers mints are individually wrapped,
they are more sanitary and therefore easier to share with others. By highlighting that Life Savers are easier to share, the brand
could have a unique advantage over the competition.
We also asked respondents which three brands came to mind when they think of mints.The question was open response,
ensuring a smaller bias. Out of 131 respondents, 66 named Life Savers as one of the three most recognizable mint brands. Altoids
received 75 responses, identifying them as a more recognizable brand.
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12. Secondary Research
I.O.N advertising researched competitors websites and marketing
strategies. We found that Life Savers website was lacking in interactivity and
originality. The website offers information on flavors and nutritional facts, but fails
to offer anything else. In comparison, Altoids’ website offers product information,
an interactive summary of its history, and ten different games.
Using the information provided by MRI+, we were able to determine the
target market and their media preferences. The database informed us that the
target market for Life Savers mints are women 18-49. This demographic regularly
consumes media concerning daytime dramas. This media includes daytime
television soap operas on channels like Soapnet and magazines such as Soap
Opera Digest and Soap Opera Weekly.
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13. Functional Benefits
Lifesavers are a strong, sweet mint that freshens the mouth without a harsh aftertaste. The product line has a plethora of flavors
including traditional mints, fruit-mints, and sugarfree mints allowing users to choose
Emotional Benefits
Many respondents claimed that they enjoyed mints because the product provides a sense of rejuvenation. Also, majority of sur-
vey participants expressed that they would be likely to share their mints. Since Life Savers come in a large bag they can be easily
shared and distributed to others. Satisfaction is an emotional benefit for sharing mints. Customers will also be viewed as very
generous and therefore it will be very rewarding.
Self-expressive Benefits
Since the majority of respondents expressed that cleanliness is important to them, using the individually wrapped Life Saver
mints will place consumers in the desired reference group of being clean individuals. This is so through using the mint for fresh
breath and the fact that the mint stays clean in its’ individual package. Also, consumers will be placed in a group of those who
are giving. The individual package makes the mints ideal for sanitary sharing.
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15. The survey showed that 80-85% of our our respondents either share their mints or are willing to accept mints
from others. In contrast, 92.5% said that cleanliness is important or extremely important to them. With these two
statistics in mind, we plan to highlight Life Savers individually-wrapped mints and large bag size in order to promote
sharing form the consumer.
We will not be highlighting sexuality in our campaign because contrary to our initial belief, respondents did
not use mints for a boost in self esteem or attractiveness. Instead we will be proposing that Life Savers are a mint
that is easy to share and easy to accept from others, which will promote use for the product. Our campaign will focus
on how Life Savers are a mint that you can share more easily than other mints.
With this information in mind, we have created the slogan “made to share”. This phrase clearly and simply
captures the essence of our message to our market. We will integrate our message across different mediums in-
cluding print, television, and Internet.
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16. THE BIG IDEA
There are some things that you share, and some you don’t. Life Savers are made to share.
MINTS
Made To Share

17. Creative Strategy
With our target market being so broad—women between ages 18 and 49—we needed a campaign that could appeal to this entire
group. For our campaign we will humorously contrast things that you do and do not share. All ads give an absurd example of some-
thing that people do not share and contrasting, our message will offer . Following this will be the our message: “Life Savers: Made to
share”. The bottom of all our ad will integrate the Internet with the call-to-action: “Learn how to share at Facebook.com/Lifesaver”.
Art Direction
The print ads will contain situations of people trying to share things that they should not. The background will be the Life Savers’
Peel Bag design that uses different shades of one color and lines with a central vanishing point. In each example, the subject will be
a silhouette centered and the text will be above and below them. Our examples include a couple on a date, a woman taking a bath,
and a couple having an intimate moment while another person tries to pull them away.
CopyWriting
The headline for our print ads will name the examples of things you wouldn’t share. This will be on the top of the print ad. Our ex-
amples include, “You wouldn’t share: (example)” in the power left. The example will be of something that you do not normally share.
Under the example will be the tag line “Life Savers: Made to Share”.
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22. To test our advertisements and figure out ways to improve our ideas, we ran our concepts by various females in our target market.
They all agreed that Life Saver mints are perfect for sharing with their individual packaging and were really drawn to this idea. Initially,
we were trying to incorporate both cleanliness and sharing into our tag line and creative concepts. The women felt that it was much more
important to focus simply on the sharing aspect and making a connection. From this we developed our more simple tag line - “Made to
Share” and based our ads around various things women would not want to share, to compare to our product.
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23. Media Objectives Media Strategies
• Reach the Target Audience Effective Reach: 65%
Our target audience is women ages 18-49. In order to reach our target audience we Effective Frequency: 3
plan to advertise by using television, print advertisements in magazines, the Internet, Continuity: We are planning a continuous
and billboards. campaign because we feel there is no set time
of the year that Life Savers mints should be
more advertised more. We feel our campaign
• Geographic Scope of the Placement will be most effective if it has a steady place in
For our campaign, we have decided to go with a combination of national and regional the media over a year.
advertising. Our commercials, print advertisements, Internet advertisements will all
be placed nationally. Our billboards will be placed regionally in metropolitan areas. Length/Size of Advertisements
This is to attract women going to work or driving their kids around. These areas include
Television: 30 second commercials
- New York City, Seattle, Washington D.C., Tucson, Atlanta, Madison and Denver.
Print: 1-8.5 x 11 page spreads
• Message Weight
Since we are only focusing on national placement of our advertisements, we want Internet: Roughly 280 x 336 pixels (vertical
each different media - television, print, Internet, and billboards- to receive equal and large rectangular skin)
message weight. We want each different form of media to be heavily weighted Billboard: 14 feet x 48 feet
because we find each one to be very important to achieving our goal.
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24. Television American Idol on FOX Weds-Thurs
With American Idol starting in January, just like our campaign,
General Hospital on ABC 3pm Mon-Fri this is a good place to start off our commercials. Running through
General Hospital also places in the top three Daytime programs May, and as the most watched TV series in the Nielson ratings, this
for women. As a classic soap opera airing five days a week, this prime time show has a huge following of younger, but especially
gives our commercials a great deal of exposure, especially to the older women.
older portion of our target market.
Millionaire Matchmaker on BRAVO 9 pm Tuesdays
The View on ABC 11 am Mon-Fri For a Fall prime time spot, Millionaire Matchmaker gets about 1.4
The View is Daytime’s number one program in women ages 18- million viewers per episode, majority who are women.
34. This is ideal for our target market and a great daytime time
slot for our commercials.
Sex and The City on Style 3-5pm Sun
Our research from MRI showed that the women in our target
watch Style Network heavily. This popular syndicated show for
women continues to bring in high numbers.
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25. Magazines
All of our print advertisements will be a one page spread.
Soap Opera Digest - 417,429 circulation
This magazine appeals to middle aged woman who want to track
their favorite and latest soap opera celebrities and stories.
Cosmopolitan - 3,032,211 circulation
Being a women’s magazine since the 1960s, Cosmopolitan continues
to attract young and hip women looking to spice up life.
People Magazine - 3,556,753 circulation
This weekly magazine based around current celebrity news has a
huge appeal to a broad range of women.
Woman’s World - 1,308,599 circulation
Parenting Early Years Magazine - 2,227,351 circulation A weekly supermarket magazine that features famous woman
Parenting Magazine attracts new parents and parents to be through and addresses popular female issues, and is read by middle
its family oriented material. aged woman.
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26. MINTS
Media Scheduling
Billboards Internet
Life Savers has chose to put billboards in the following For our Internet campaign, Life Savers had decided to advertise
cities for three months each: (chosen based on solely on Pandora. Our choice was a “skin” advertisement, which
geographic location) is when the whole background of the website is taken over by a
brand with their campaign. The skin will follow the same concept
New York City - 8,008,278 as the print ads. We have placed our skin to come up whenever a
Atlanta - 420,003
Seattle - 563,374 user begins to listen to a country music station. Country music has
Madison - 233,209
Washington D.C. - 601,723 a huge following of women in our target market.
Denver - 600,158
Tucson - 546,569
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27. MINTS
Media Scheduling
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$3,180,000
$2,798,000
$1,975,174
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28. Billboards Television
City # of Months Total Cost Program # of times Cost for each Total Cost
1 New York, NY 3 $1,441,490 1 General Hospital 24 $30,000 $720,000
2 Seattle, WA 3 $101,407 2 The View 24 $30,000 $720,000
3 Washington D.C. 3 $108,310 3 Sex and The City 18 $30,000 $540,000
4 Tuscon, AZ 3 $98,362 4 American Idol 20 $30,000 $600,000
5 Atlanta, GA 3 $75,600 5 Millionaire Matchmaker 20 $30,000 $600,000
6 Madison, WI 3 $41,997 Total for Television: $3,180,000
7 Denver, CO 3 $108,028
Total for Billboards $1,975,174
Magazines Internet
Title # of pages Cost per page Total Cost Website Reach Frequency Impressions Total Cost
1 Soap Opera Digest 2 $13,709 $27,418 1 Pandora 3,000,000 3 9,000,000 $450,000
2 Cosmopolitan 4 $244,100 $976,400 Total for Internet $450,000
3 People Magazine 4 $288,500 $1,154,000
4 Parenting: Early Years 3 $131,740 $395,220
5 Woman's World 3 $81,965 $245,895
Total for Magazines $2,798,933
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29. Website
“Learn how to share” Educational Segment
Since all of our advertisements direct consumers to our website with the promise
“Learn how to share at Life-Savers.com”, the main page of our website will include
an educational segment on sharing. The section will feature many “inspirational life-
savers”, or philanthropists, of the past century. These are people who have selflessly
contributed a great deal of resources, ideas, and effort to benefit others. Viewers
will be able to scroll through brief biographies of well-known philanthropists like
Mother Teresa, Clara Barton and Bill and Melinda Gates, as well as lesser-known
philanthropists like Harry Moseley and Zach Bonner. This educational campaign will
show visitors that anyone can share and how average people can make a profound
difference.
Objective: This section of the site will aim to motivate consumers to share by educating
them on past inspirational philanthropists. The how to share campaign also forwards
our overall objectives because it reinforces our brand as “the mint that you share”.
Strategy: We will promote “learn how to share” with a call-to-action on all of our advertisements across every medium. We will also
promote this brand activation through the social media. On Facebook and Twitter we will post and tweet small, interesting facts about
these philanthropists and provide a link to the website if our followers want to learn more.
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30. Website
“How Do You Share?” Contest
ION Advertising proposes the “How do you share?” online video contest, for
consumers to compete for the next Lifesaver’s television commercial. To promote
our new “Made to Share” concept, contestants will need to make a video that
shows a unique way or circumstance to share Life Savers mints. The sweepstakes
will be open on our website for entries during the months of March and April.
Through this time contestants will upload, view, and rate videos through a
Youtube account embedded in our website. The winning video will be chosen on
May 1st based on the number of positive views and the ad would begin running in
September. Through our voting system, contestants will need to share their video
and promote awareness of Lifesaver mints to their friends.
Objectives: To promote sharing and teaching others interesting ways to share.
Strategy: All of our advertisements direct consumers to our website with a call to action, but to further to build awareness of “how do you
share?” video contest, we will again utilize social media. Through twitter and Facebook we will tweet and post interesting ways to share
followed by the call-to-action “Show us how you share at Life-Saver.com/share
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31. P.O.P Promotion
“Share A Saver”
The “Share a Saver” promotion involves giving away one Life Savers to each customer for free at checkout counters where Life Savers are
sold. We plan to partner with CVS locations across the Northeast since our target demographic is heavily located in that area. CVS is a
good selection because their new campaign Beauty 360 aims to attract more women by creating a better customer experience. Individually
wrapped Lifesavers will be placed in an open container at the checkout counter. There will be a message behind the container that says,
“Please take a free Life Saver. We love to share a saver with you.” The promotion will take place during July and will be featured in 500 stores
across the states of Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, and New Jersey.
Objective: The aim of this is to reinforce the sharing concept and generate customer interest through free samples.
Strategy: We will promote “Share a saver” with the containers and message at checkout. We imagine that this alone will create enough
buzz among employees and consumers to sufficiently promote the campaign.
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32. Our two objectives were to increase awareness by 65% and increase sales by 3%. Since our advertising remains relatively consistent
throughout the year, brand activations will be the primary variable in our change in sales and awareness
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33. Creative Brief – Life Savers
Historical Background:
In 1912, Life Savers founder Clarence Crane put a hole in the middle of his mints for
differentiation and named them “Life Savers” for their resemblance to mini life
preservers. Six years later, the Wint-O-Green flavor mint was introduced, followed by
the 5-flavor roll pack. In 2000, Life Savers were purchased by Kraft Foods and stayed
with them for four years until Wrigley took over the brand. Life Savers continue to make
various products, along with the traditional mint flavors and 5-flavor roll.
Goals:
Our main goal for this campaign is to increase sales by 3% as well as increase awareness
by 65% for women ages 18-49.
Target Market:
The target market for Life Saver Mints is very broad. For this campaign we will focus our
advertising on women ages 18-49. Life Saver’s secondary target includes men ages 18-
49.
Advertising Problem:
Currently, Life Savers Mints are solely recognized as the mint that is wrapped
individually. We plan to highlight their large packaging in order to sell the product. By
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integrating their generous portion size along with the friendly concept of sharing this
campaign can be successful.
Advertising Objectives:
Our main objective for this campaign is to position Life Savers as a mint that is made to
share. In order to reposition this brand we must convey that Life Savers are distributed in
large bags and they deserve to be shared.
Target Customer:
Our target customer is for women ages 18-34. We will be breaking up our target market
into two separate groups. One part of the advertising plan will be directed at women ages
18-34. This set of women includes the college student as well as the young bachelorette.
Our second group includes women ages 35-49. This particular set of women includes
married women or just women with children.
Underlying emotion need:
Women are likely to purchase things that make them feel clean and will keep others
satisfied. Women ages 18-24 will purchase something that they can share with their
friends or co-workers. Women ages 35-49 purchase things that they will be able to share
with their family. Purchasing a bag of Life Savers will fulfill this emotional need to share
and keep the people around them content.
Competition
Altoids, Tic Tacs, Mentos, Ice Breakers, and Breath Savers