Viva La Revolución

"Oscar" Campaign for Frito's TrueNorth Snacks Taps "Yes We Can" Inspiration

From David Kiley, BusinessWeek, Feb 20...

During the Academy Awards broadcast February 22, hold the popcorn and pass the nuts. Viewers, especially women, will be asked to be inspired by nuts. Yes, nuts.

Frito-Lay, which launched the True North line of nut-based snacks last year to appeal to baby boomers, is the exclusive snack sponsor of the broadcast, commonly known among media buyers and advertisers as “The Super Bowl for Women.” Four ads, each profiling a real person doing something for their community, will run during the broadcast usually filled up with imagery of Hollywood glamour and glitz.

Ads that ran in the second half of last year launching TrueNorth focused on taste and ingredients, and were meant to spark awareness of the new brand and help push the product into store shelves. But the Oscar ads are meant to be the brand’s real coming out as a brand Frito-Lay is pinning high hopes on to make up for plateauing sales for chips.

The TrueNorth line of products consist of three flavors of nut-clusters, three flavors of crisps that are made from nuts as well as mixed whole nuts.

Baby Boomers, say new product analysts and researchers, change their snack habits dramatically after age 35, away from chips and pretzels, and more toward nuts and snacks that seem healthier even if they aren’t markedly so. “Everybody snacks, but the older you get the more you want to be able to justify the snack as healthier,” says independent marketing consultant Dennis Keene. “For an adult, especially a parent, it doesn’t seem right to be eating the same chips and dips as your teenage children.”

Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo, has the leading market share in the chip category. But the company has long seen a hole in their business with today’s baby-boomers, aged 44 to 63, especially women. Those customers have increasingly been gravitating to nuts, natural snack brands like Kellogg’s Kashi, and “natural” positioned chip brands like Terra. “Despite the fact that Lays products have a very good healthy ingredient profile, boomers in particular were not associating our products with health and wellness,” says Frito-Lay spokesperson Aurora Gonzalez.

So, the chip giant is going after grown-ups by trying to build some positive earthy buzz around the products during what is typically the biggest TV audience for women.

One ad that breaks Sunday night profiles the founder of Penny Harvest, a program that organizes kids to gather pennies and then share the money with kids who are in need. The program has raised over $7 million so far. A second TV ad profiles the founder of Sustainable South Bronx, a program that is “greening” the blighted area of New York City with trees, gardens and parks. A third ad profiles a man who has been erecting extraordinary metal roadside sculptures in his hometown of Regent North Dakota as a means to bring tourist traffic to the economically depressed town.

The fourth ad ties in more directly with the Academy Awards, flagged to viewers as directed by Oscar winning actress Helen Hunt. The ad, “Inspiration Café,” profiles Lisa Nigro, the founder of a restaurant that serves the homeless and provides job training and fellowship to its customers. “After reading thousands of inspiring stories, our team felt that Lisa Nigro’s story exemplifies the purpose of TrueNorth—giving life extraordinary meaning,” says Regan Ebert, vice president and general manager and the executive in charge of launching the new brand.

The ad campaign breaking during the Oscars, which costs Frito-Lay about $1.4 million per ad, carries a risk that such high-mindedness around eating a nutty snack could come off as overly earnest. “Not at all…True North is a special brand about passions, and people have become very passionate about the food they eat and their health,” says Kevin McKeon, partner and executive creative director at StrawberryFrog, the New York ad agency that created the campaign.

Other brands, such as Volvo, have also tried to associate themselves with profiles of people doing inspiring things and making contributions to the community. But it could be that the TrueNorth messages will resonate better amidst a deep economic Recession. “It’s all in the execution with ads of this genre, but associating a brand with positive, hopeful, uplifting stories when so much of the news is awful might well be a better idea than trying to make people laugh for a few seconds,” says consultant Dennis Keene. "the whole mood and execution of the ad, too, looks, like it could have tied into Barack Obama's campaign message, and given his approval ratings that's not a bad thing eiether," says Keene.

Since 2002, salty snack sales have grown almost 42 percent to $15.9 billion last year, according to data from London-based market research company Mintel International Group Ltd. Of that, healthy snacks are about $6 billion and the fastest growing segment. Those kinds of numbers drove Kraft, for example, to introduce more than 20 new snack products last year, many of which are categorized as contributing to health and wellness.

Viewer ratings for the Oscars have been declining in recent years. And the current median age of the audience shows younger viewers are less interested in these types of shows. The Oscars has a median audience age 49.5, which has driven several categories of advertisers away. But it turns out to be just right for a new brand aimed square at baby boomers.

StrawberryFrog's TrueNorth Oscars Campaign in NY Times

Below is an excerpt from Stuart Elliot's Feb 19 article.

As more of the prime-time TV schedule is turned over to reality series, which many advertisers disdain for their questionable or even sketchy content, the Academy Awards remains appealing to blue-chip brands that want to be associated with programming they consider prestigious.

“It’s a great environment for us,” said Kevin McKeon, partner and executive creative director at the New York office of StrawberryFrog. The agency produced three commercials for the show for the True North line of nuts sold by the Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo.

“When people watch the Oscars, they’re watching the best films of the year, the best stories of the year, the most inspiring,” Mr. McKeon said. “It’s the right place for this brand to be.”

The True North commercials present everyday Americans who, according to Regan Ebert, a vice president and general manager at Frito-Lay North America in Plano, Tex., “have found their True North, their true passion, and inspire others.”

One spot will reveal the winner of an essay contest sponsored by True North, which Ms. Ebert said had drawn 2,300 entries. The spot was directed by the actress (and Oscar winner) Helen Hunt.

The show is an effective way to reach female consumers. It is often referred to as “the Super Bowl for women” because in many years, more women watch the Academy Awards than the Super Bowl.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COVERS FROG AND TRUE NORTH AT OSCARS

February 19, 2009 

LEWIS LAZARE Media & Marketing columnist; llazare@suntimes.com

They say the Oscars are Hollywood's biggest night. Well, when the Oscar statuettes are handed out on Sunday in front of a national television audience numbering in the tens of millions, it also will be a big evening indeed for Chicago's very own Lisa Nigro. She and the Inspiration Cafe she founded will be the subject of a 60-second, documentary-style commercial from the Strawberry Frog agency for True North nut snacks. True North, a unit of the giant Frito-Lay snack food company, was launched less than a year ago, and the newish company wanted a major platform like the Academy Awards to introduce the brand to a large, heavily baby boomer audience.

Nigro and the story of her cafe, which serves meals to the homeless in a restaurant-style setting on the city's North Side, were chosen as the subject of True North's major Oscar telecast commercial from among more than 2,300 responses to a promotion that called for the public to submit stories of people pursuing their passions and making the world a better place in the process.

To add an extra layer of interest to the making of the Nigro commercial, True North and Strawberry Frog executives tapped Academy Award-winning actress Helen Hunt to direct this special Oscar TV spot. Why Hunt? First, Hunt is a boomer and part of the True North brand's target demographic. Plus, Hunt zealously pursued her own dream to direct a feature film -- a goal she finally realized a couple of years ago with the release of "Then She Found Me."

It would be nice to report all went swimmingly with the filming of the True North spot. But because of the way the promotion was set up, the three-day location shoot couldn't be scheduled until mid-January, when temperatures were hovering around zero in the Windy City.

So when Chicagoans see the finished commercial's world premiere Sunday night, they will be able to fully appreciate what all involved had to endure to capture one wonderful shot of a bundled-up Nigro standing on a very snowy, icy North Street Beach. It is but one of a number of pleasing visuals in the True North spot that -- all together -- give a very heartwarming account of Nigro's saga.

Agent Provocateur embraces social media with Twitter launch

by Sarah Crawley-Boevey, Brand Republic 09-Feb-09, 10:40

LONDON - Lingerie brand Agent Provocateur has launched an online social media campaign to promote its Hello Agent Provocateur blog using Facebook, Flickr and Twitter.

HelloAgentProvocateur.com was created by StrawberryFrog and includes blog posts, updates and news revolving around relationships, romance, men and women as well as Agent Provocateur promotional work.

Reviews of the latest chick flicks, results of romance-themed surveys and the history of the bra are all included in regular updates which also allow readers to comment.

Originating in the US, the website's launch coincides with a steamy new ad campaign designed to remind men to remember Valentine's Day.

With the slogan 'Love me tender… or else!', the ad is appearing on the company's website as well as the new HelloAgentProvocateur.com blog page.

Changing the Present featured on Beet.TV

Late in 2008, StrawberryFrog's campaign for Changing the Present was featured on Beet.TV, including this interview with Frog Executive Creative Director Kevin McKeon.

Earlier this month, I interviewed Executive Creative Director Kevin McKeon of StrawberryFrog, the highly regarded advertising agency responsible for the campaign.

The ads begin as conventional commercials for pricey cars or jewelry and then there's a shock: The new Lexus is a goat, in an appeal to provide funding for livestock for impoverished farmers.  A jewelry box contains a hypodermic needle in an appeal for funding for polio vaccinations for entire villages.   

"It's just to get people to think about gift giving in a different way and to do it in a way that's unexpected for that category," he says. "They're usually very sappy or make you feel guilty. [Our purpose is] to bring a little humor to it, to not make people feel like you're a bad person if you don't do it, but just to get them to remember that idea."

These are great ads for an important cause. We are pleased at Beet.TV to host the ad for the next couple of weeks.  We hope that our colleagues in the online video content creation and syndication will integrate more public service messages into videos; it's important.

--Kelsey Blodget, Associate Producer Beet.TV

Change the Present gears up for global campaign this Valentine's day.

Change the Present is a global not-for-profit that functions a lot like Amazon. Working with global agency StrawberryFrog, Change The Present has developd an international social media campaign that uses everything from Facebook apps to viral to TV advertising to drive home the idea that this Valentine's Day, you should change the present to gifts that are meaningful.

See the videos here.

Jan 30 – The nonprofit ChangingThePresent.org seeks to make the world a better place by connecting Valentine day gift-givers with 350 non-profit organizations offering 1,600 gifts and a universe of 500,000 registered philanthropic organizations from around the world. 

The two: 30 spots spoof traditional Valentine commercials, replacing gifts like bow-topped cars with a sheep adorned by a big red ribbon (supports the Heifer Project International), and a beautiful jewelry box containing a polio vaccine (UNICEF).

Robert Tolmach CEO of ChangingThePresent says: 
“We have been consistently floored by the consummate caliber of the Frogs' work.  To say that they have exceeded our expectations would be an extreme understatement. Every aspect of their efforts and our resultant campaign reflect the infectious passion, best-in-class creativity and searingly intelligent strategy that drive the highly coordinated work of their entire team. They are mobilizing our mission to make charitable gifts part of the landscape of universal gift giving.  Creating a new social norm is no small undertaking, but StrawberryFrog immediately saw the possibilities and on the spot developed the seeds for a campaign with a bigger impact than we could have hoped for. Now ChangingThePresent.org has a comprehensive brand identity and site design; a web campaign that is turning heads, and a TV advertising campaign that completely transcends the clutter of standard nonprofit communications.The needle is starting to move in a very real way; and rather than feeling that we have a world-class AOR; we feel that we have a full family of exceptionally supportive and brilliant co-conspirators.  Their work is so strong that we are inspired to push even harder ourselves to accelerate bringing our shared vision into a full-blown reality.  It is an honor to be building this movement together.”

Results already
Robert continues: 
"Since the new site was launched and the digital campaign in late 2008, traffic to ChangingThePresent.org (http://www.changingthepresent.org), website has increased more than 10-fold each month. Since November site traffic has increased over five-fold or more. For example, website traffic on January 12, 2009 was 76,563 UVs as compared to the same day in 2008’s 6,787 UVs, a 7-fold increase. Yesterday (Jan. 12), in what is traditionally the January doldrums for retailers and charities, we hit three times that, or 76,563."

Sabra Appoints New Advertising Agency

Sabra Dipping Company Today Announces the Appointment of StrawberryFrog as New Agency Of Record

Astoria, NY (PRWEB) November 17, 2008 -- Sabra, www.sabra.com, the leading manufacturer of refrigerated Mediterranean dips and spreads, has announced that StrawberryFrog will be the company's new advertising agency of record.

"We're happy to appoint StrawberryFrog as our new advertising and communications agency. We selected StrawberryFrog as our partner for their exceptional insight, creative excellence and proven track record of delivering effective and innovative advertising," said Rodrigo Troni, Sabra's Chief Marketing Officer.

We're happy to appoint StrawberryFrog as our new advertising and communications agency. We selected StrawberryFrog as our partner for their exceptional insight, creative excellence and proven track record of delivering effective and innovative advertising

StrawberryFrog joins us at a very exciting time for the company, when we are making important product and marketing investments in a mass movement for new and tastier food experiences.

Sabra is a very special brand with tremendous momentum, I don't think I've come across anything like this in my career before. Our mandate is to work in close cooperation with Sabra's management to turn this momentum into a Cultural Movement that invites consumers to be part of something bigger and more meaningful.
We are thrilled to begin a relationship with Sabra in this new chapter of the brand's growth.

This relationship between Sabra and StrawberryFrog is especially rewarding because Sabra has taught us about how America's food desires are radically evolving. Sabra's mass appeal is a phenomenon that is redefining the culture of food in the United States at a time of change.

Troni continues, "StrawberryFrog joins us at a very exciting time for the company, when we are making important product and marketing investments in a mass movement for new and tastier food experiences."

Chip Walker, StrawberryFrog's Head of Strategy said, "Sabra is a very special brand with tremendous momentum, I don't think I've come across anything like this in my career before. Our mandate is to work in close cooperation with Sabra's management to turn this momentum into a Cultural Movement that invites consumers to be part of something bigger and more meaningful."


About Sabra Dipping Company, LLC
Sabra Dipping Company, LLC. of Astoria, New York, makes a wide and outstandingly delicious range of refrigerated Mediterranean dips and spreads. Using fresh herbs and spices, authentic Mediterranean recipes and healthy vegetables, the dips and spreads are richer, smoother and tastier. All of the products are beautifully presented, certified kosher and vegetarian and available across the nation. With over +50% growth in the past 52 weeks, Sabra is leading its category according to recent IRI reports. Sabra's rapid growth and category leadership sparked interest from food industry leaders PepsiCo and the Strauss Group, which own equal shares of the company in a joint venture created earlier this year. Visit www.sabra.com.

FROG AND FRITO-LAY FEATURED IN NY TIMES

From New York Times TV Decoder: TV is 'Live-ing' It Up

by Stuart Elliot

The advertising economy may be gloomy and television networks may be reporting declines in demand for commercial time. But the interest among marketers in sponsoring so-called big event TV, the live shows that still draw large audiences, seems, well, alive.

The Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo has become the first marketer to disclose that it will buy commercial time during the ABC broadcast of the Academy Awards on Feb. 22. A new line of Frito-Lay snack nuts called True North is asking consumers to enter a contest to create a commercial to be shown during the Oscar-cast.

“The most extraordinary story on the Oscars could be yours,” proclaims the headline of an ad in the Nov. 10 issue of Newsweek. The ad starts this way: “Are you doing something amazing? Something with the power to inspire others? Then we might want to tell your story in a 60-second commercial during the Academy Awards.”

The ad asks consumers to visit the True North Snacks Web site for more information about the contest.

Frito-Lay would not be the first advertiser to sponsor a contest for consumers to create a commercial for the Academy Awards. Unilever did that during the show that was broadcast last Feb. 24, for a product called Dove Supreme Cream Oil Body Wash.

ABC charged advertisers an estimated $1.6 million for each 30 seconds of ad time during the most recent Oscars. The network has not disclosed a price tag for the spots during the next show, which will be the 81st annual Academy Awards presentation.

The Oscars typically draws an audience that is chockablock with women and affluent, more educated viewers. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is changing its rules for 2009 to allow movie studios to run certain types of commercials for coming releases during the show next February.

The largest TV audience of the year is almost always drawn by the Super Bowl. Super Bowl XLII, broadcast on Feb. 3, garnered a record audience of about 97.5 million viewers.

For Super Bowl XLIII, to be played next Feb. 1, NBC — whose turn it is to broadcast the game — is charging a record price, estimated at an average of $3 million for each 30 seconds of commercial time.

Among the advertisers that have said they are buying spots in the next Super Bowl are Anheuser-Busch and Frito-Lay. The latter plans to run the winning spot in a contest that asks consumers to create a Super Bowl commercial for its Doritos brand.

Do we sense a pattern here in Frito-Lay ad initiatives for the first quarter of 2009? Actually, this will be the third Super Bowl in a row that Frito-Lay has sought consumer-generated content for its Super Bowl ad time.

Cars.com, which ran two 30-second spots during Super Bowl XLII, said on Friday that it would run one spot, lasting 60 seconds, in the second quarter of Super Bowl XLIII. The company said the spot would mark the beginning of its marketing campaign for 2009.

StrawberryFrog Unveils New Campaign for Frito-Lay's True North Brand

True North nut snacks is searching to find a story about your life's passion that will be filmed and broadcast during next year’s Academy Awards.

 

The TrueNorth brand has struck a partnership with Oscar-winning actress Helen Hunt, who will direct the 60-second spot. Consumers are being invited to submit essays on www.truenorthsnacks.com now through Dec. 31 for a chance to have the story of their most compelling passion told in the spot to air during the 81st Annual Academy Awards broadcast on Feb. 22, 2009.

 

This is the first time a major consumer brand is reaching out to Baby Boomers in a massive social media campaign using the internet.

 

TrueNorth will be the exclusive snack category advertiser during the annual film awards show. The spot will be one of several that TrueNorth will run during the pre-show and the awards show itself.

 

“We want to find people who have found their “True North” and put a spotlight on their powerful stories,” said Regan Ebert, vice president and GM, warehouse direct business for Frito-Lay North America, in a release.

 

The personal passion spot will be the starter for a multimedia campaign on national TV, in print and online that will include three inspirational stories the brand has already discovered. The campaign will include profiles of Gary Greff, whose sculptures adorn his hometown of Regent, ND, Majora Carter, an ecology activist in the Bronx, NY, and Teddy Gross, who is empowering children with the power of a penny.

 

StrawberryFrog is the creative agency for Frito Lay True North, working in close partnership OMD media and Ketchum PR.

 

Link to the story: http://promomagazine.com/contests/news/fritolay-seeks-stories-1119/

STRAWBERRYFROG BRAZIL SECURES HENKEL

Some very good news out of our Brazilian agency today. StrawberryFrog Brazil has secured part of the Henkel account. The agency will be responsible for the Consumer Product unit, for brands Pritt and Loctite Superbonder. StrawberryFrog Brazil won the pitch launched by Henkel – a global leader in adhesives, seals and surface treatments – for its Consumer Product unit, which includes the brands Pritt and Loctite Superbonder.

"We do have strong and challenging targets specially in Latin America where Henkel Businessesare still on a positive trend and we do count with this new partnership to start a new era for our consumer brands."

--Joel Amorim, from Henkel Marketing & Trade AB/AC Latin America South.

The selection process started in July. Previously, the account had been served by DM9DDB. In addition to the accounts of the leading brands in gluesticks and superglues in Brazil, StrawberryFrog will also be in charge of managing the company’s media investment. The first media action signed by StrawberryFrog will start running next January, a little before the start of school year, for Pritt.

"We want to be a strong ally to Henkel’s team, led by Joel Amorim in Latin America, on its way through differentiation and innovation in its marketing efforts, broadening the meaning of the brand to consumers and the way they relate to each of the company’s products." 

--Alexandre Peralta, CEO and Chief Creative Officer from StrawberryFrog Brazil.