Is Men's Health Nuts to Team with Planters?

Ever heard of Beer Nuts? The brand of bar peanuts, redolent as it is of junk foods and calorie-laden alcoholic concoctions, is typical of male consumption of nuts.

But now Kraft has another approach in mind. Leveraging the increasingly understood association between nuts and health in a new way, the Planters brand has signed a deal to co-brand a nutritious nut mix with Men's Health magazine, as we noted here yesterday.

Planters Nut-rition Men's Health Recommended Mix has rolled out with an advertising campaign on the back cover of the May issue of the magazine and a TV spot (watch it below) that's now running on ESPN and other US cable networks.

"This was really a natural evolution," Scott Marcus, senior brand manager for Planters, commented to Ad Age. "We've seen what men are looking for and felt there was a real need for health snacks for men."

Maybe. Men's Health has struck before, with Carl's Jr. for a co-branded QSR turkey burger. It also has licensed its name to a Microsoft Kinect video game. But slapping its brand on a mainstream CPG product may be the magazine's biggest stretch yet.

As for Planters, its Nut-rition sub-brand has been moving to take advantage of the scientifcally buttressed connection between nut consumption and health for a long time.

But will consumers go nuts when attempting to process the significance of a magazine brand on their snack purchase? It's not exactly setting a hook like the cartoon brands that license their properties to kids' "fruit" snacks (we're looking at you, Betty Crocker and SpongeBob SquarePants).

Meanwhile, it seems that even the Beer Nuts brand has seen the nutritional light as well. About a year ago, the Bloomington, Ill.-based brand announced that it was changing its packaging to promote Beer Nuts "as a healthy choice when choosing a snack." No update on how the bar crowd has been receiving that.