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Interstate updates product lines, boosts ad spending to drive sales
THE TURNAROUND FIRM charged with rebuilding bankrupt Interstate Bakeries Corp. has cut a lot of costs, but marketing for top brands including Wonder and Hostess is certainly not one of them.
Interim management from restructuring specialist Alvarez & Marsal plans to more than double last year's $11 million outlay for IBC's Wonder and Hostess over the next year and is spending big on a premium breadline, Baker's Inn.
'SIGNIFICANT CHANGES'
According to interim Chief Marketing Officer Jacques Roizen, the marketing upsurge since IBC's September 2004 Chapter 11 filing is designed to support the "significant changes over the past seven months." IBC, desperate to drive sales, has updated product lines and packaging.
Those changes were as necessary as IBC's 13% reduction of its 32,000 employees and the consolidation of its 10 plants into five. Neuberger Berman analyst Bill Leach said...