The playful bear-shaped snack, Barni, the “friend of little ones” as it’s called in Georgia, has won the Golden Brand award in the category “favorite snack cake with packaging”.
Owned by the world’s largest snack company Mondelēz International, Barni is “baked to perfection”. Its soft biscuits have no artificial colors or preservatives. They’re approved for children from the age of three and can contribute to healthy snacking if eaten as part of a balanced diet.
In this edition we met Nina Tevanian, Manager Sales Operations for Mondelēz Georgia, who briefly summarized 2022 and the first quarter of 2023 in an interview for Golden Brand.
Q. Georgian customers have named Barni their favorite snack cake with packaging this year. What brought Barni this recognition, in your opinion?
A. First of all, Barni is a delicious and wholesome bear-shaped soft cake, made of simple ingredients, that kids love and parents trust.
Last year we maintained our portfolio and kept up media support for the brand in Georgia with increased focus on bloggers and digital media to drive our “Barni has no secrets” campaign among parents.
Q. Golden Brand is given to brands following successful operations of the previous year. Please summarize 2022.
A. It was a turbulent year for all of us, but we managed to change sourcing quickly and put the product on shelves for our consumers. I would like to emphasize that this was the whole team’s achievement — sales, logistics, customer service. We all worked as one family and supported each other.
Q. Can you share sales statistics of 2022 compared to 2021?
A. It was a very successful year for Barni with double-digit growth on the market.
Q. How has the year 2023 begun for your company, and what are your expectations?
A. We started this year with a new equity campaign which continues embracing simple ingredients & kitchen logic that enhances Parents Trust and is fundamental to our high- quality product credentials.
New Barni Equity also stretches the brand into more fun, playful, “curiosity driven” territory to drive engagement with end consumers – kids and their families.
So there’s no doubt we will continue expanding Barni’s appeal and relevance with our consumers.
Q. What are some recent developments of Barni as a brand? Please share the brand’s progress here.
A. Barni has been evolving to stay up to date with changing consumer needs, and last year we upgraded the packaging design, making it more iconic and stand-out. Barni as the brand that “Fuels Kids Curiosity” will offer parents and kids cool “edutainment” content through Augmented Reality on every pack via QR codes.
A. Please tell us about future plans for Barni in Georgia. Do you plan to introduce new products to Georgia and which would those be?
A. Though Barni has no secrets, we cannot disclose any innovations for the future. All I can share is that we will definitely increase our media visibility across all channels.
Q. How are you going to deepen Barni’s presence on the Georgian market? What is the company’s growth strategy for Georgia?
A. We are keeping focus on simple ingredients and big seasons for Barni – back to school and Christmas – with great gifting sets nurturing playfulness and childrens’ curiosity.
Q. Please tell us what makes Barni unique and why Georgian customers love it.
A. Frankly, beyond being just a really great-tasting soft cake, it is a great brand that is trusted by millions of parents for quality standards and loved by millions of kids for “only Barni can do” activities that fosters curiosity and parent-child quality time.
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