Baby products brand Munchkin launches its first-ever baby formula exclusively at Target and its own website. GM Kristin Pagano shares why its target market is a challenge to acquire.

Baby formula needed a shakeup. And not just one bottle, the whole market.

In short, more supply is needed in North America, said Kristin Pagano, General Manager of Infant Nutrition at Munchkin and former Vice President of Marketing. Pharmaceutical company Abbott Laboratories, which makes Similac, and manufacturer Mead Johnson & Company, which makes Enfamil, dominate the market. The concentration of the baby formula market came into focus for many U.S. consumers in 2021 when the supply chain crisis and product recalls created an infant formula shortage.

But this will hopefully no longer happen as Munchkin has entered the baby formula market with its sight on becoming a top player, Pagano said.

“We really wanted to bring new supply to the North American market,” Pagano said. “If one of those main manufacturers go down, you have a true supply issue.”

This month Munchkin debuted its infant formula on its brand website and at all Target stores. The brand is manufacturing the formula at a newer facility in Canada, which can produce 80 million pounds of formula each year. Pagano does not expect to run out of capacity there.

Emotional and Relatable Creative

Munchkin already sells baby-feeding products for both breast-feeding and formula-feeding families, such as a formula dispenser and a newly launched nipple shield. Developing a formula is the “last piece of the puzzle” of products a baby needs to feed, Pagano said.

While many pregnant women have goals to breastfeed their baby, the majority of women end up using formula to some capacity within the baby’s first year, Pagano said. Munchkin’s marketing of the new product highlights what feeding an infant looks like over the course of a year.

“We did a lot of testing with our creative before going to market and moms really felt empowered and like we understood that journey and those feelings they were going through in that first year,” Pagano said. “So really focused on that emotional piece of feeding and the decisions that you need to make in that first year for you and your baby.”

Marketing to ‘the Leakiest Bucket’

Munchkin plans to lean heavily on digital marketing to target this narrow group of women, which is women with infants 0 to 12 months looking to formula feed their baby, Pagano said.

“At any given month you have 300,000 babies born, 50% are breastfeeding — so you have 150,000 babies — so it is one of the leakiest buckets known to man,” Pagano said. “And every day I gain somebody, I’m also losing somebody. It’s not a traditional CPG model where you’ve got a great lifetime value. The only thing I know for sure is I’ve got you for less than one year.”

With digital ads, Munchkin can eliminate spend to consumers who don’t have a need for the product.

“A lot of other typical vehicles will have a lot of waste from that perspective and (digital ads will enable us) to focus as much as possible on our target audience … and knowing we need to hit them with a decent amount of frequency in a category that requires a lot of trust,” she said.

The brand will also look to advertise to pregnant women because even if a woman doesn’t plan to formula feed her baby, she will need to have awareness of Munchkin’s formula if she needs to quickly make a decision if breastfeeding isn’t going well.

To target pregnant women for brand awareness, Munchkin is including an information card with baby registry Baby List in its complimentary welcome “Baby Box.”

“Baby List gives the broadest reach in terms of registrants,” she said. “Moms aren’t necessarily considering formula for them at that point. What they know at that point is they believe that breastfeeding will work. So we think there’s a lot of more effective, cost effective ways to reach these moms throughout their journey.”

Munchkin Promotes Formula Subscription on its Website

While it may be hard to acquire the formula-feeding mom, what Munchkin does have going for it is a breadth of baby products and high-brand awareness, she said.

Munchkin also has a direct-to-consumer website so it can build look alike audiences using its own data. So far, just a few weeks into the formula-launch campaign, consumers have had a “great response” with click through rate, Pagano said.

For the short-term, Target will be the only retailer selling the formula, and Munchkin will be advertising it with the mass merchant’s retail media network Roundel. Munchkin is heavily focused on search ads on Google and within Target’s platform, plus display ads.

On its own website, Munchkin is promoting a subscription to the formula, which gives shoppers 10% off all their entire order for the duration they are formula subscribers and free shipping.

Formula is a heavy product and gas price are going up, which makes the free shipping offer to the consumer expensive for Munchkin. But, it was an import piece for the brand to offer, she said. Pagano expects the large majority of purchasers on Munchkin.com to be subscribers because of the benefits.

Munchkin’s Formula is 10 years in the Making

Munchkin has been working on formula for the past 10 years, and is excited to finally bring its FDA-cleared product to market. The formula has 10 of the same ingredients as breast milk. From a nutrition perspective, all baby formulas have the same requirements for what goes in them. The variation between the formulas is what ingredients the brand uses to meet that nutritional requirement or if they have additives, such as a probiotic.

“We are the only ones that have this kind of blend of 10 from the fresh milk ingredients,” she said. “Some [companies] have different pieces of it, but nobody has this complete, these 10 ingredients that we’ve got.”

Munchkin has two versions, one organic with cow milk from New Zealand, and a non-organic version. The packaging prominently shows an image of a cow on it, which will help if it expands its portfolio into other dairy products in the future, Pagano said.

Munchkin is owned by Why Brands Inc.