A Mascot With a Twist Helps Alpen Find Joy

Remember the days when every cereal had a mascot, and when the likes of Tony The Tiger and the Weetabix gang were never off the telly? Ralph does. He’s a large, red, and very huggable monster in an elegant dressing gown and a pair of glasses, and he used to be the king of the cereal mascot game.

These days, of course, he’s in retirement… well, kind of. Ralph’s switch from the cereal of his joyful youth to a more grown-up kind of breakfast – Alpen muesli – is in keeping with his more mature lifestyle. But Alpen can be joyful too, and Ralph still lets himself follow his old monster impulses and go wild on a bowl now and then.

Alpen and Mother have crafted a funny, charming and sly ad which has its cereal and eats it, making the point that Alpen is indeed a breakfast for grown-ups but also making clear that grown-ups can feel joy too, especially when they tuck in to a refreshing morning bowl of muesli. And in Ralph they’ve found the perfect comic creation to bring both those ideas to loveable life.

As well as being an instant star, Ralph is an interesting new take on the idea of a Fluent Device character. The concept of a Fluent Device, you’ll remember, is a creative idea that can be used across multiple ads, driving the story and becoming a brand asset in its own right. Mascots are perfect examples of Fluent Devices, and they work because they create both feeling and fluency for a brand – emotional response and rapid recognition.

It’s fairly common (and good practice!)  for brands to bring back old Fluent Devices, but Ralph is a clever twist on this. He’s designed to remind viewers of old mascots and monsters without actually being one. Most obviously he’s reminiscent of the classic Sugar Puffs Honey Monster, but there’s plenty of other creatures in the mix too. He’s immediately familiar without actually having any existing brand connection – a neat trick to pull off for Alpen!

As Matt Sadler, Strategy Director at Mother London puts it “Alpen has long been seen as the adult choice – but that doesn’t mean it’s a choice without joy. We wanted to embrace a nostalgic, playful attitude while positioning muesli as a delicious marker of maturity that breakfast eaters will love getting their teeth into. So, naturally, using System1 to confirm we were on the right track felt like the Grown-Up thing to do.”

As Matt says, we at System1 were privileged to test this ad right from the animatic stage – and the audience response to Ralph shows that Alpen are onto a good thing here. The ad scores 4.1-Stars, which predicts strong long-term brand growth given the right level of investment. This score is well above the 3.2-Star average for this highly competitive category. And Ralph also gets a strong short-term Spike score predicting sales lifts.

Alpen describe Ralph and the tongue-in-cheek “grown up” approach as part of a ‘creative platform’. As the IPA’s recent Multiplier Effect shows, that’s the kind of framing brands need to unite long-term equity marketing and short-term performance marketing. Ralph has both angles covered, and the future looks bright for this effectiveness monster.

The last word goes to Francesca Theokli, Marketing and New Product Development Director at Alpen owners Weetabix Ltd: “It’s thrilling to see Alpen introducing something new and different to cereal advertising and we are excited about where this new and joyful creative platform can take us. We’re incredibly proud of the work we’ve done with the Mother family. System1’s testing and expert guidance gave us the confidence to take the execution to another level.”