Two years ago, Bolthouse Farms excited childhood-obesity activists with an innovative marketing campaign to get more kids chomping on baby carrots with the tagline, "Eat 'Em Like Junk Food." The initiative helped Bolthouse Farms reignite its long-quiescent sales of baby carrots and presumably played a role in making the Bakersfield, Calif.-based company attractive enough to be acquired by the Campbell Soup Company earlier this year.

Now, Bolthouse has come up with a second act for its baby carrots marketing: Shakedowns, all-natural dry seasonings that coat baby carrots in a bag. Baby boomers might be reminded of the classic Shake N Bake Chicken that their moms used to, well, shake and bake, because they're the target for Shakedowns as much as their kids are.

"We were introducing [a focus group] to the 'junk food' campaign, and teenagers there were saying, 'Well, why don't you season [baby carrots] like Doritos?" Todd Putman, CMO for Bolthouse Farms, told brandchannel. "We thought, 'OK, how do we do that?' We went on a long innovation journey. But we immediately thought it was a great idea."Continue reading...

Apparently tired of just prodding its unresponsive soup business into a turnaround, Campbell Soup made a big diversification move Monday by agreeing to acquire Bolthouse Farms for $1.55 billion. Bolthouse began in 1915 as a big carrot farm run by William Bolthouse near Bakersfield, Calif., and has scored a number of successes over the last few years in the better-for-you food, beverage and snack space — not to mention trying to put baby carrots top of mind.

By purchasing the Bolthouse brand from a private equity firm, Madison Dearborn Partners, Campbell gains a premium beverage business to complement its growing portfolio of V8 beverages as well as a fresh-carrot business that Campbell believes could be a healthy-snacking opportunity.

In addition to its implications for Campbell, the move also represents a further homogenization of America's biggest consumer-packaged-goods conglomerates, making Campbell look a little more like Kraft, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola as they all diversify strategically into more better-for-you categories.Continue reading...

Since 1968, winning an Effie Award has been recognized as a symbol of marketing communications excellence for advertisers and agencies globally. Effie is a pseudo-acronym, an abbreviation derived from the word effectiveness, and its award, is a singular mark of advertising/marketing excellence.

The 2012 North American Effie Effectiveness Index, announced last week at the 44th annual Effie Awards Gala in New York, ranked Procter & Gamble as the most effective advertiser in North America and IBM as the most effective brand.Continue reading...

Since we don't want to spend more time covering the product placement in Hop than the filmmakers spent on the whole plot of the movie, this is going to be short.

The ad tie-ins got started even before the movie did. Our cinema screened the above commercial trailer for Walmart featuring Hop-branded merchandise just before starting the film.Continue reading...

This weekend's slate of movie openings offers a little product placement for everyone.

A time traveling sci-fi mind-bender offers up donuts. A tragic tale of cyber predation is full of one glossy tech brand in particular. And then there is the kids' Easter product placement juggernaut that is Hop, and its basket of major brand "partners."  

But first, at top, check out a behind-the-scenes look at Morgan Spurlock's doc on product placement, Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, used to advertise KDF wrap graphics services.Continue reading...

It's a mother's worse nightmare — her kids' addiction to junk food. Especially given the increased awareness around childhood obesity, junk food has been taking a big hit of late.

Which is why baby carrots have gone on the offensive. In a classic case of repositioning a healthy food with lagging sales, forty-nine carrot producers recently formed the Bunch of Carrot Farmers alliance to reposition baby carrots as a snack food, with a clever marketing campaign and the catchy tagline, "Eat 'em like junk food."

Bryan Reese, chief marketing and innovation officer of Bolthouse Farms, who is spearheading the $25 million baby carrots push, tells Ad Age that the carrot category was flat and the marketing was missing "an emotional connection."Continue reading...

New creative in the baby carrots branding push are, tongue in cheek, positioning baby carrots as an aphrodisiac, with three versions of femme fatales. Check out a cybersexy spot and a Lara Croft-like adventuress after the jump.Continue reading...

As America's nutritionally-challenged youth head back to school, an initiative led by Bolthouse Farms is taking on the junk food industry with a killer snack food alternative – carrots. Baby carrots actually. In this corner – the $18 billion dollar salty snack food industry; and in this corner – the $1 billion dollar baby carrot world.

As back to school marketing takes over America, 50 carrot growers are joining Bolthouse in the first ever baby carrot marketing campaign.

Spending some $25 million dollars, according to USA Today, the war chest is funded by "A Bunch of Carrot Farmers," the tongue in cheek name adopted by U.S. carrot growers in the battle for kids’ lunch boxes and vending machine snack choices vs. packaged snack food marketers.Continue reading...