I often felt bad about working in advertising because doing a good job typically meant I was helping sell products that people either didn't need (or worse, were actually bad for them) or couldn't afford. In fact, no product or service I ever marketed was one that people BOTH needed AND could afford.
But maybe if I'd been hired to market broccoli?
These are the kinds of assignments advertising agencies rarely get to work on because, as this article describes, there's little money in real food. Government subsidies go to the likes of corn and soy - not the corn on the cob you eat at a summer barbecue, or the edamame you munch on before your sushi - but the kind you find hidden in strange ingredient names in the majority of processed food and animal feed, which is the far bigger business. And while this unfortunate reality is getting more and more publicity as of late, I don't expect anything to change any time soon.
That said, three years ago a bunch of carrot growers got together and pitched in what amounted to millions to market baby carrots via Bolthouse Farms, the second largest supplier of carrots in the country. Bolthouse Farms' CEO is an ex-Coke exec so knows a thing or two about how to market snacks. They hired one of the best agencies in the business to come up with the campaign and it was a great success. So... it is possible to get people to eat better. But their approach, which was to market baby carrots as if it were junk food rather than a healthy alternative to junk food (a brilliant flip), tells us a lot about the American consumer.
Unfortunately, these success stories are few and far between. And it all goes back to my earlier point that there is little money in the real food business and therefore little incentive for anyone to put much energy (financial or otherwise) behind it. But the broccoli makeover article inspired me...
I am co-chair of the Green & Healthy committee at Frank's elementary school. It is a year-long initiative but there is a special focus on it in January, for obvious reasons. As such, my co-chair and I are encouraging teachers to incorporate Green & Healthy activities into their January curriculum, and are providing some suggestions to get them thinking. Suggestion #1:
Have your students pick a vegetable and then create an advertising campaign (depending on the grade, that could mean just a print ad or a bigger campaign) for that vegetable that would get kids their age to want to eat it.
A few years ago, I balked at the crowdsourcing agencies popping up everywhere taking revenue from the traditional agencies. But when I realized they weren't going away, I found ways to use them that strengthened my client offering vs threatened it. And now, I'm embracing the crowdsourcing model even further. If every teacher chooses to do this activity with their students, we will have 1500 ideas on how to get kids to "eat their veggies!"
I've been in the business for too long to believe even 1500 5-10 year olds will come up with something as good as Crispin did for baby carrots, but if this exercise can at least change the way some of the kids at PS321 feel about a few different vegetables, I'll call that success!
(If you're feeling inspired yourself, the NYT blog has a call for entries for new slogans to sell beets, cabbage cauliflower, turnips or peas.)
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