Today, a set of carrot videos came my way. Hysterical stuff—and probably one of the best things that could happen for us health-minded types. The creatives who dreamed up this ad plan:  geniuses. 
 

Last spring an advertising agency called Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CPB) was charged with moving carrots—specifically baby carrots. Sales of the orange missles were flat.  Jeff Dunn, CEO of Bolthouse Farms which sells a billion pounds of carrots a year, wanted (and needed) to infuse excitement and energy into his carrot business.   
 

Dunn, who was a top executive at Coca-Cola, knew a certain amount of magic (he calls it “fairy dust”) must accompany any marketing initiative. Bolthouse had never marketed carrots before; it hadn’t needed to. But with people’s shopping habits changing due to the economy, pre-cut veggies were a luxury. Bring on the fairy dust to get baby carrots back in shoppers’ baskets. 



 

Dunn believed carrots had an appealing personality. He wanted to tap into that vs. talk beta-carotene, calories or health—emotion and fun vs. logic and rationale.  CPB delivered with the videos and a full revamp of carrots and their snack-food image.  For example, Bolthouse is even packaging the carrots in bags that crinkle like chip bags to denote the feeling (and sound) of traditional snack foods. More brilliance. 
 

The recipe seems to be working. Test markets (Syracuse, New York and Cincinnati) show sales are up 10% to 12% over the year before. Just this month they tied in with the movie Hop—much the way sugary cereals and fast food companies link up with popular kids’ movies. 
 

What’s on the horizon? Flavored carrots perhaps? Seriously… it sounds like they may be cooking up that possibility. Genius.
 

You can read the full story of Dunn and his carrot caper in this month’s issue of Fast Company.