Yes, I too have fallen victim to the recent ads for baby carrots. The ads reminded me how fun and easy it is to eat baby carrots, how healthy they are, and how cool I look eating them. Actually that’s not true. I started eating baby carrots because the ads are done by Crispin Porter and I thought it was funny that such a notorious ad agency is doing a campaign for BABY CARROTS! hah. So I thought to myself, I am not the typical consumer. I may not even be the target market for baby carrots, but who is? So I decided to do a strategic analysis of the baby carrot ad campaign. Undoubtedly this post will top the charts for the most popular and widely read blog articles of 2011, probably of the decade or century (just so long as nobody writes an article strategically analyzing the recent Kay Jeweler ads, phew that would be mind blowing).
So we all know that CP creates ad campaigns that generate buzz around products, and attract attention to social media campaigns. Refer to the Burger King “King” stunt for proof of this fact. Everyone knows about the King, people dress up as the King for Halloween, and post sightings of he King on their Twitter accounts. But the real question is, did the King drive sales for Burger King, or were their advertising dollars wasted, the ad impressions not being an indication of people switching brands? The existence of the King did not give consumers insight into a benefit of switching brands from McDonalds or Wendy’s to Burger King.
The consumer behavior objective for Baby Carrots is to get snackers to switch from salty snacks and other unhealthy options to Baby Carrots. Focus: Getting people to SWITCH brands.
The Baby Carrot ads are targeted at unhealthy snackers. These are the people that eat out of the vending machine when they get hungry and chomp mindlessly on Doritos or Pop Tarts. When they go grocery shopping they plan ahead for this mindless snacking and buy chips and candy so they’ll have something on hand when the cravings strike.
“Easy as junk” (created by me just now, but patent pending so don’t even think about it) is the benefit that Baby Carrots provide to the target market. I’d say that the number one focus is “EASY.” Baby Carrots are just as easy to mindlessly consume as Doritos. I believe that this is the focus due to the placement of baby carrot vending machines in High Schools accompanied by the tag line, “Eat em like junk food” –>
The support behind this reason is a little bit hard to come by in the advertising and marketing efforts because they have to create the actual support, as it does not exist inherently in the product. Carrots are not as abundantly available for snacking as Cheetos and Twizzlers. Putting the vending machines in schools provides a REASON why it’s just as easy to eat baby carrots. Additional support may be, “They’re small and crunchy,” “They come in a lil bag,” or, “They’re brightly colored.”
The key copy words in the campaign are “Eat em like Junk Food,” from the vending machine body, and “Munchies.”
The dramatization of the benefit is the packaging of the baby carrots. They are packaged in bags that look like Gushers bags, donut bags, and Dorito bags.
I find the execution to be interesting, as it is focused on one single minded idea of baby carrots being as easy as junk food. Everything from the “Chip and Abdul” ads to the vending machines radiates this campaign idea. The vending machine definitely adds credibility and strength to the promise (aka the brand benefit).
I think support for the benefit is lacking. If baby carrots are not available in all of the places that junk food are, the benefit is not true. Sure, if there were vending machines EVERYWHERE that provided baby carrots then it would be, but what about the school cafeteria, my campus grill (definitely does not have baby carrots, I checked) etc. The campaign does not pull through on the support, and I think that because of this, the customers will not relate to the advertising and profits for baby carrot farmers will not increase.
I think that if the campaign focused less on the availability of baby carrots in relation to junk food, it may be more effective. It could focus on how fun it is to eat baby carrots, or even the fact that they don’t have to be refrigerated so you can throw them in your purse or backpack and snack on them later!
So once again, a funny and clever ad campaign that may not be successful regardless of the amount of attention and buzz that it generates. It does not provide support for the consumer benefit and give consumers a real reason to switch from salty snacks to carrots.
PS it would be easy to say, oh hey, they should have focused on the health benefits of baby carrots, but the TM of people approximately ages 13-18 do not like people telling them what they should and should not eat and tend to not be very focused on health.
If I had a company, my goal would be to drive sales, not to generate buzz. But I guess that’s just me.
