Clif Bar vs Larabar Brand Comparison

P R E P A R E D B Y K A Y L A F L O Y D
O C T O B E R 2 0 T H , 2 0 1 6
Battle of the Bars
VS
Clif Bar & Company
1451 66th Street
Emeryville, CA 94608
Larabar
P.O. Box 9452
Minneapolis, MN 55440

Table of Contents
—  Introduction ……….……….……….….……….………….…… 3
—  Meet The Brands ……….……….……….….……….………… 4-5
—  Product Comparison ……….……….……….….……….…… 6
—  Audience ……….……….……….….……….……………………. 7-8
—  In-Store Presence ……….……….……….….……….……….. 9
—  Digital Presence ……….……….……….….……….………….. 10
—  Website ……….……….……….….……….……………………… 11-13
—  Social Platforms ……….……….……….….……….………….. 14-34
¡  Social Media Overview …………….. 15
¡  Facebook ……….……….……….……… 16-18
¡  Twitter ……….……….……….…………. 19-21
¡  YouTube ……….……….……….………. 22-24
¡  Instagram ……….……….……….…….. 25-27
¡  Pinterest ……….……….……….………. 28-30
¡  Google + ……….……….……….………. 31-33
¡  Platform Winners ……….……….….. 34
—  This, Not That …….……….……….….……….……………….. 35
—  Evaluation ……….…………………….….……….….………..… 36
—  Winner …….……….……….….……….………….………………. 37
2

Introduction
Before going on a hike, or even just for a busy
day, Clif Bar and Larabar are some the first two
brands people think of when reaching for their
“backpack snack”. As category leaders in the
health and lifestyle nutrition bar market, both
Larabar and Clif Bar have a large presence on
social media. The purpose of this paper is to
evaluate both the similarities and differences of
each brand’s website, as well as multiple social
platforms including Twitter, Facebook,
YouTube, Instagram, Google +, and Pinterest.
The awareness, effectiveness, and maturity
across all digital marketing channels for both
brands will be evaluated to show which bar’s
brand is truly the strongest.
3

Meet
the
Brands:
“Feed Your Adventure”
—  Founded in 1992
—  Co-owners and founders: Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford
—  CEO: Kevin Cleary
—  Privately-held company (had an offer in 2000, but
decided not to sell)
—  500-1,000 employees
Clif Bar stemmed from an idea Gary had while on a 175 mile
bike ride. He had packed a lot of other snack bars, but none
of them seemed to satisfy him. With his background as both a
baker and mountain guide, he decided to start experimenting
with recipes for a new energy bar. After landing on the
perfect blend of ingredients, Gary decided to name the bar
after his father Clifford. Distribution began at bike shops,
outdoor stores, and natural food retailers. Now, you can find
Clif Bars in grocery stores, convenience stores, and many
other retailers nationwide.
From 2002 to 2013, the company purchased 425 million
pounds of organic ingredients and they continue to divert
85% of its office waste from local landfills.
4

Meet
the
Brands:
“Simple. Pure. Delicious.”
—  Founded in 2000
—  Founder: Lara Merriken
—  Owner: General Mills
—  Publicly-held company (GM)
—  10,000+ employees (GM)
Larabar, too, came from an epiphany. The idea came to Lara
during a hike when she starting of thinking why there wasn’t
a product on the market that was made with real food,
portable, and that still tasted delicious while being healthy.
She often says that the food-bar business chose her. Each of
their products have only 9 natural ingredients or less. (I
mean, that’s it?!) Larabar believes that the foundation for a
sound body, mind, and spirit is derived from what you eat.
Their wrappers are even recyclable through their partnership
with TerraCycle and their chocolate/coffee beans are
purchased from Fair Trade Certified farmers.
The first batch of bars Lara produced for retail had to be
sealed by hand- all 500 of them! Now, millions of bars are
produced a year.
5

Clif Bar Larabar
—  3 different brands
—  29 total flavors
Product Comparison
—  21 different brands
—  115 total flavors
*They also offer Larabar Original Minis!
↵
6

Audience: Clif Bar
—  Adventurous; enjoy hiking,
biking, swimming, rock
climbing, etc.
—  Have an active and healthy
lifestyle
—  They target many different
segment markets due to the
large amount of sub-brands
they have
—  The simplicity and nutritional
value of the ingredients are not
a priority
—  Want an energy snack bar
—  Targets both males and
females
7

Audience: Clif Bar
—  May not necessarily have an
active lifestyle, but are very
health-conscious
—  Check the ingredients on
everything
—  Want a healthy snack bar
—  The raw ingredients Larabar
uses appeals to those with
special and specific diets
(gluten-free, dairy-free,
kosher, vegan, non-GMO, and
soy-free). Finding grab-and-go
snacks can be difficult for them
and Larabar is a great solution.
—  Primarily targets women
8

In-Store Presence
Clif Bars and Larabars are both displayed in
the health snack bar section of the grocery
store. Clif Bar has much more shelf space, due
to the breadth of their products. This could
give them an advantage for shoppers just
looking to grab whatever they see first.
The images shown were taken in a Kroger,
where both bars were $1.00 each. What’s
interesting about how they were advertised is
that the Clif Bars were labeled as $1.00, yet the
Larabars were advertised as 10/$10.00. This
could definitely sway a few shoppers who may
buy these types of bars in bulk.
They are both packaged very similarly, the
same as all other nutrition and protein bars. If
one of these brands could slightly alter the way
they are displayed and packaged on the shelves
to differentiate themselves, they could be at a
large advantage.
9

Digital Presence
—  Strengthà The likelihood your brand is being talked about on the social web
¡  People are talking a little more about Clif Bar on the web. At 60% strength for Clif Bar, they seem to be talked about pretty
regularly online.
—  Sentimentà The ratio of generally positive to generally negative comments on the social web
¡  Larabar has slightly more positive comments in comparison to negative comments about their brand. For every 8 positive
comments about Larabar, there is a negative one.
—  Passionà The likelihood that people who talk about your brand online will do so repetitively
¡  The likelihood for individuals to talk about your brand more than once is much higher for Larabar. At only 15%, Clif Bar
should think of ways for consumers to continue to talk about them.
—  Reachà The number of unique individuals talking about your brand divided by the number of
mentions
¡  There is a higher variety of individuals talking about Clif Bar than Larabar on the web, but both brands have a higher than
average reach.
*5-day average from Social Mention
10

Website
—  Clif Bar’s website is very interactive and displayed in a
grid-like layout. The home page has a lot of internal
links within it.
—  A lot of their website goes beyond just explaining their
products and company history; they have video stories
of athletes (embedded straight from their YouTube),
nutrition and training tips, a podcast for runners, and
how they’re involved in sustainable sourcing.
—  They do a great job of integrating their brand
throughout their site. Every section of their site is
branded; For example, ClifLife, ClifTV, and ClifCast.
Their “go explore” button scattered throughout several
areas of the site really emphasizes their mission and
what Clif Bar is all about.
—  Call-to-action buttons, such as ‘Buy Now’ and
‘Subscribe’, as well as an email newsletter sign-up are
easily visible.
—  Links to all of their social channels are accessible on
their home page. They are missing a Pinterest link.
—  One suggestion I have for them is to show content or a
feed from other social channels directly on their site.
—  Larabar’s website is interactive, as well. They have a
video playing as soon as you land on the home page.
—  They do a great job of linking their social channels
directly on their website, as well as having their
Instagram feed along the bottom of their home page.
They should add a YouTube link.
—  Larabar’s website is also sectioned out, but in a much
more simplistic way (just like their branding!) than
Clif Bar’s.
—  I love the timeline page of their site. It does a great job
of taking your through important milestones for the
company.
—  They provide videos on their website, but they do not
link directly to their YouTube; this could be a little
unclear.
—  One suggestion I have is instead of having the master
menu on the top of the right side of the webpage, to
instead have collapsible menu tabs across the top. It
may make it a little less confusing to the user that
there are many other sub-pages within the site.
13

Platform by Platform
Comparison

Social Media Overview
Platform
305,538 likes
349 people talking about this
237,948 likes
2,170 people talking about this
132K followers 40.3K followers
17,742,840 views 2,025,022 views
104K followers 52.2K followers
3.4K followers 2.4K followers
100 followers 77 followers
15

Facebook
Best Practices
—  They link all other social media platforms within
their Facebook page through tabs on the side menu.
You can directly view pins, videos, and photos.
—  Through the notes section, they keep followers
informed on current events and crises.
—  They make an effort to keep the conversation going
with users who frequently comment.
Things to Improve On
—  They are sometimes very scattered with their
responses, it seems as if there is no strategy in place.
Often, they respond right away, but other times they
are very delayed (over a week late once, but they at
least apologized). There were many unanswered
questions in comments.
Fun Features
—  They created a quiz with their Instagram photos
spelling out the answers.
—  A promotion was run for people in Canada to enter
and try their new Clif Mojo bar.
Best Practices
—  Engages their audience by asking fun questions
within their posts.
—  Response times is high; responds within 1 hour.
—  VERY active in getting involved in the conversation.
They comment on almost all of their posts.
—  A variety of reading material is available within their
notes section, compared to the single post Clif bar
has in their notes.
—  There are links to a couple of their other social
platforms (YouTube, Instagram), but they should add
tabs on the menu for their Twitter and Instagram, as
well.
—  Another idea is to use the timeline that is already on
their website and put it under their Facebook
milestones.
Fun Features
—  Have a coupon tab where they occasionally offer
coupons exclusively for Facebook fans!
18

Twitter
Best Practices
—  For Clif, this platform has the most unique content
across all of their social sites. For Facebook, YouTube,
and Instagram, their content is all integrated.
—  Many of their Twitter posts are to engage with their
athletic fans to both encourage, inform and congratulate
them.
—  The level of engagement followers have with likes and
retweets is huge.
—  They post the most frequently on this platform and use
unique hashtags so that followers will get involved.
—  They do have a lot of original content not present in their
other social channels, but it would still be beneficial to
include integrated content more often.
Fun Features
—  Had a campaign with the hashtag #FromMeToBrazil for
the Rio Olympics encouraging words of inspiration
across seas.
Best Practices
—  Their cover photo is great; including your mantra
consistently is always beneficial.
—  Even when repurposing their other content, they
make a point to introduce a hashtag in almost all of
their tweets. Even their bio has hashtags. Awesome!
—  Make good use of embedded tweets. A lot of
companies fail to do this.
—  Clif Bar is extremely ahead of them in terms of
followers. They need to find a way to gain more.
—  Have more original content than retweets. They seem
to have way more retweets on their feed than their
own posts.
Fun Features
—  They once used a Twitter poll to gauge consumer
interest on which new flavor to release next.
21

YouTube
Best Practices
—  They link to their other social sites and website at the top
of their YouTube home page.
—  They have a wide variety of videos, but their overall
theme and brand image is still consistent.
—  They do a great job of organizing their video content.
—  Even though they don’t have any huge gaps of time where
they don’t have an upload, they should be more frequent
with their posting. Recently, they’ve only been posting
about once a month or less.
—  They have not responded to any of the comments in the
discussion section.
Fun Features
—  One of the most unique videos they have is their ‘How Do
You Adventure?’ interactive video. It allows you to click
on links within the video that bring you to other scenes of
the video. Even though this video is innovative, it still
only has below 3,000 views.
—  A lot of their videos have purpose, through advice from
Gary or giving the opportunity for Farmers to speak.
Best Practices
—  They link to their other social sites and website at the top
of their YouTube home page.
—  There’s a bunch of behind-the-scenes and company
background footage and on their channel.
—  A lot of their videos are not included in any specific
playlist. I would suggest categorizing every video into a
playlist for easier navigation.
—  Since view count is low, they should be spreading more
videos through the rest of their social platforms.
—  Besides the “Food Made From Food” campaign, the last
video uploaded was over a year ago. There is also a lot of
disconnect with the theme of the channel overall. They
need to have more variety in their videos, while still
maintaining a consistent brand image.
—  Larabar should have some recent video content that
resonates and connects with the consumer, rather than
just sales commercials; there is SO much opportunity
here for this fun and cute brand.
—  They also have not responded to any of the comments in
the discussion section.
24

Instagram
Best Practices
—  They are great about using user-generating content
and giving them credit by tagging the user in the
post. They are constantly tagging other accounts in
their captions, which draws in viewers.
—  They include a good mix of videos, scenery, and
stories of athletes.
—  Their account is not verified, even though they have
almost twice the amount of followers as Larabar, who
is verified.
—  Clif Bar show many stories of people and photos of
the lifestyle of their target market, but almost never
show the actual product in their pictures.
Fun Features
—  Their hashtag campaign, #BeyondNuts, was a unique
way to introduce their two new Coconut Almond and
Peanut Butter bars. Every picture had two vertical
halves of an outdoor scene, one darkly lit and the
other brightly lit, to symbolize the two new flavors.
Best Practices
—  Their Instagram is extremely aesthetically pleasing.
Catering to the female demographic, they do an
amazing job with their picture quality.
—  Informative, creative, thoughtful, friendly.
—  They are consistent with putting a hashtag of their
brand name in every single post.
—  Have an immense variety of posts; videos,
regrammed posts, recipes, stories, new products, and
even integrations with new platforms (such as
Pandora).
—  Try new ways to boost their following; Clif Bar has
almost twice the amount of followers. One idea is to
introduce new hashtag campaigns or to just add
more unique hashtags to the posts.
Fun Features
—  Larabar uses images of their product in almost all of
their pictures; the color and simplicity of their brand
is an attractive feature they love to showcase.
27

Pinterest
Best Practices
—  Hashtags are used in the descriptions of all of their
boards. This is a great way to tie back into all their
other social sites.
—  Most of their boards have three word names, such as
‘Climb a Rock’, ‘Catch a Wave’, or ‘Take a Ride’. This
simple and easy names make them easy to
remember.
—  Their Pinterest board is all about the athletic
lifestyle. There is absolutely nothing about their
product. It is important to connect with your
audience’s hobbies, but Clif should have at least one
board with recipes or snack bar related pins. Food is
huge on Pinterest and they are missing out on a large
audience.
Fun Features
—  They’ve done a great job separating their board by
activity. This makes it easy if one individual only likes
one type of sport because they can go and follow only
that one board if they would like.
Best Practices
—  Larabar has a great blend of product uses through
recipes and the flavors they offer, as well as lifestyle
and inspirational pins.
—  In addition to recipes with their own products, they
also just have a board devoted to other healthy foods.
This shows that Larabar truly cares about helping
their followers and are not just pushing their own
snack.
—  Compared to Clif Bar’s 1,000, Larabar only has 306
pins.
—  They have liked no pins and their following could be
boosted just by liking and engaging with other
pinners who have similar content.
Fun Features
—  The Larabar ‘Snack Hacks’ board has great ways to
use their bars in ways you would never think of. One
idea shows their Gingerbread Larabar being used as
as the base for a gingerbread cookie.
30

Google +
100 followers
Best Practices
—  The cover photo, profile image, and video posts are
all identical to what is on their YouTube channel.
This creates consistency across sites.
—  They include a great introduction and their tagline
under their ‘About’ section.
—  Over the past year, they have just posted videos. In
2015, they used to post useful links, photo updates,
and more. They may benefit from returning to
their old roots and posting more of a variety.
—  They only link to their website, but not to any of
their social channels.
—  They include their address and phone number, but
should add their email under the contact
information.
77 followers
Best Practices
—  They do a great job of linking to all their other social
sites, as well as their website, in their ‘About’ section.
They include an introduction and their tagline in this
section, as well.
—  Having their phone number, email, and address
included for their contact information is beneficial.
—  They need to include a cover photo.
—  Their last post was made in 2014. In total, they have
only made 7 posts and all were videos from their
YouTube channel. If they want to upkeep their
following, they need to post more regularly, as well as
posting a variety of content. They could post links of
unique and relatable articles for their followers. At
least they have kept the 77 followers these past 2
years!
33

This, Not That
×
Clif Bar has a presence on LinkedIn, but Larabar does not. This may be because Larabar is now owned by General
Mills. Larabar should create a LinkedIn profile; there are still employees working for Larabar itself. What Larabar does
have that Clif Bar lacks is a blog. Larabar’s blog gives tips for healthy living, recipes, stories, and inspirational thoughts.
Clif Bar has a podcast and video series, which is why they may not have thought to start a blog. They should consider
starting a blog to further connect with consumers and bring their brand into the sphere of thought leadership.
×
35

Setting the “Bar” High
The health and lifestyle snack bar market is very crowded,
but Clif Bar and Larabar are two brands that come top of
mind for consumers. Even though both bars are in the
same category of business, their digital marketing tactics
are vastly different. Clif Bar serves as a great online
community for athletes. Their presence is all about lifestyle
and the stories that they tell. They highlight athletes and
different outdoor activities, emphasize living in the
moment and being adventurous. While they have great
content overall, they should focus on trying to have
differentiating content for each separate platform. Larabar,
on the other hand, concentrates on the ingredients of their
products. Most of their posts show images of the product
and connect the simplicity of their bars to a simple lifestyle.
On social, they tend to talk a lot about healthy eating and
give recipes, tips, etc. A lot of times, they engage with their
audience by asking questions in the captions of their posts.
36

And The Winner Is….
Drum roll, please! The decision was close, but overall, I
believe Clif Bar has a slightly stronger and more
established presence across all digital channels. They have
an effective following both in person and online. Their focus
is athletes, but they still communicate openly to everyone,
which is what has made them so successful. Their ability to
address mistakes and issues via social media and constantly
bring hashtags into the conversation has helped them excel
on every platform. They provide a wide array of differing
content and are on a variety of platforms. They could have a
leg up since they have been around slightly longer than
Larabar, but Larabar definitely has made their mark online,
as well. Clif Bar could learn from Larabar’s clever posts by
trying to incorporate a more creative aspect into their digital
strategy. Larabar also rises to the top when it comes to quick
response time for their audience. They are always
monitoring their social sites to respond whenever needed.
Keep up the great work, Clif Bar and Larabar!
37

Clif Bar vs Larabar Brand Comparison

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