From an article by STUART ELLIOTT appeared in The New York Times

At a time when many consumers are drinking tap water rather than bottled water, shopping at Wal-Mart rather than department stores and eating in rather than dining out, a high-end chocolatier is making over its marketing to better fit in with the new mood.

The Godiva brand of chocolate is introducing a campaign that carries the theme “the golden moment.” The campaign, with a budget estimated at $3.5 million to $4 million, is the first work for Godiva from its new agency, Lipman in New York.

The campaign, composed of print and out-of-home advertising, does not seek to reposition Godiva as an alternative to Hershey or other mass-market candy brands. Nor does it suggest, as so many ads for upscale products do these days, that Godiva is a good value.

Rather, the campaign seeks to explain why Godiva is still worth buying during tough times, using an emotional appeal to make the case that a brief respite to indulge oneself — “the golden moment,” as it were — is as desirable now as it was when the Dow was at 14,000.

Maybe even more so.

“We’ve taken a very different tack with the campaign,” says Lauri Kien Kotcher, chief marketing officer and senior vice president for global brand development at Godiva Chocolatier in New York, which was sold last year by the Campbell Soup Company to a Turkish company, Yildiz Holdings.

During the economic boom years, the brand essence was centered on “luxurious celebration,” Ms. Kien Kotcher says, which “made a lot of sense at the time.”

Now, one goal is to “re-engage people around the Belgian heritage” of the company, she adds, so the words “Belgium 1926” appear under the brand name in place of “Chocolatier.”

A second goal is to play up what Ms. Kien Kotcher calls “the chocolate deliciousness” of Godiva, which the campaign seeks to accomplish by including in each ad a beauty shot of candies, stacked in small piles of four or five pieces — some even half- (or more) eaten.

The candy shots are taken by a photographer, Raymond Meier, who contributes to publications like Vogue.

A third goal of the campaign, according to Ms. Kien Kotcher, is to dial up the “emotional appeal of giving, sharing, eating Godiva chocolate.”

“When you give the gold box, receive the gold box, eating something from the gold box, there’s something special about that moment,” she says, adding that the hope is for the new theme of “the golden moment” to “become the new brand essence” of Godiva.

Ms. Kien Kotcher acknowledges that “luxury today is very different” from what it was only a couple of years ago.

“It’s more inward-looking,” she says, “about how you feel about yourself” rather than trying to impress others.

And while no one is likely to confuse the cost of a box of Godiva chocolate with the price of a Kit Kat bar or a bag of M&M’s, in context the brand can be considered “right for the times,” she adds.

“People can trade down from a Tiffany silver piece to a Godiva gold box,” Ms. Kien Kotcher says.

“You can still get a beautiful, classy gift for $15” from Godiva, she adds, and “$25 buys you a fabulous gift you’d be proud to give to anybody.”

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