Let’s hope the success of Birds Eye’s GenVeg campaign emboldens other healthy foods to reach out to kids.

In May, when Birds Eye announced that they would be spending $6 million over three years on kid-friendly advertising with a goal of increasing vegetable consumption among children, I was hopeful the campaign would be successful as I noted in this blog.

http://pjlehrer.blogspot.com/2012/05/genveg-is-idea-whose-time-has-come.html#comment-form

I figured if the corny commercials that the Television Bureau of Canada ran in December 2010 could increase broccoli sales by 8%, then there was every reason to believe that other, possibly better, attempts to increase vegetable consumption would be successful as well.  Here’s that blog for reference.

http://pjlehrer.blogspot.com/2010/12/yes-advertising-can-sell-broccoli.html#comment-form

So I was tickled pink to read that the partnership with “ICarly” appears to have been a great success.  According to Birds Eye, the campaign generated 40,000+ sweepstakes entries, 16,000+ recipe ideas and 225,000 page views on the Nick/Birds Eye site.  Perhaps more importantly, the category experienced growth while the campaign ran, countering the flat to negative sales trends of recent years.

The campaign had so many interesting tactics that it’s hard to know which impacted the kids most.  Was it the” Steamfresh Chef of the Week” which encouraged kids to submit cooking-related photos?  Or the kid’s recipe contest, which resulted in “Yakimaniac Veggie Martians,” being featured on an episode “ICarly?”  In the end, I suspect that it was the totality of the multi-faceted effort that was responsible.

Birds Eye is already preparing a new campaign for next fall based in part on key insights gleaned from the kid-generated recipe ideas.  Doesn’t that sound like a win win?  Chiquita Bananas, are you paying attention?

Lukovitz, K. (2012, November 21)  Birds Eye Reports Success With ‘ICarly’ Partnership.  mediapost.com.  Retrieved December 6, 2012, from

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/187720/birds-eye-reports-success-with-icarly-partnershi.html?edition=53767#axzz2EHYsf1G2

“GenVeg” is an idea whose time has come.

If like me you are still reeling from this week’s headline that 42% of Americans will be obese by the year 2030, (Finkelstein, Khavjou, Thompson, Trogdon, Pan, Sherry, Dietz, 2012) then you will be glad to hear that companies are starting to step up to help fight this critical battle. Birds Eye has joined the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), and made a $6 million dollar three-year commitment to ‘GenVeg’, a kid-targeted campaign.

Kids are not the easiest target to address, but with ads running on Nickelodeon’s iCarly featuring “one of America’s most well-known young stars” and a plan to use their input to create new vegetable products it does seem like the company has done its homework and may be successful in convincing kids to eat more veggies.

But, perhaps more important is the fact that they estimate that 1/3 of the ads will reach Women 26-54 with children 6-11, and household incomes of $30,000 or less.  And, a massive coupon program is part of the plan.  (Lukovitz, 2012)

In the long run, convincing the moms may be more important than the kids.  But what happens when the coupons run out?

Eric A. Finkelstein, PhD, MHA, Olga A. Khavjou, MA, Hope Thompson, BA, Justin G. Trogdon, PhD, Liping Pan, MD, MPH, Bettylou Sherry, PhD, RD,William Dietz, MD, PhD. (2012, June 12)  Obesity and Severe Obesity Forecasts Through 2030.  American Journal of Preventative Medicine.  Retrieved may 10, 2012, from

http://www.ajpmonline.org/webfiles/images/journals/amepre/AMEPRE_33853-stamped2.pdf

Lukovitz, K. (2012, May 8)  Birds Eye Commits $6M To Kids’ “GenVeg’ Effort.  mediapost.com.  Retrieved May 9, 2012, from

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/174162/birds-eye-commits-6m-to-kids-genveg-effort.html?edition=46608