Trying humour for rebranding

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: Remember that “reset” button presented by Hillary Clinton to the Russian foreign minister? A major food maker is pushing its own version on a leading brand.

ConAgra Foods began an ambitious effort that seeks to reintroduce to consumers the Healthy Choice line of frozen meals and other products. The multimedia initiative has a budget estimated at $90 million to $100 million—a hefty sum in good times, much less during a downturn when many marketers are slashing advertising spending.

The reintroduction seeks to stir interest in a brand that was considered pioneering when it reached stores in 1989 because of ingredients and recipes that were intended as, well, healthier choices than offered by traditional packaged foods. By 1993, Healthy Choice was described by the trade publication Advertising Age as “the most successful new food brand introduction in two decades.” But 20 years can be a lifetime in the crowded, fast-paced realm of consumer products, particularly in prosaic categories such as packaged foods in which shoppers crave “news” in the form of innovation and variety.

For instance, according to Zeta Buzz, a tool used by the Zeta Interactive agency in New York to survey blogs, message boards and online communities, there were only 1,253 posts about the Healthy Choice brand in the last 90 days compared with 2,193 for a primary competitor, the Lean Cuisine brand sold by a unit of Nestle. The goal is “breaking through the fog of familiarity consumers have with the brand,” said Joan Chow, executive vice- president and chief marketing officer at ConAgra in Omaha.

So the changes to Healthy Choice include new products, among them a line of All Natural Entrees with chi-chi names such as pumpkin squash ravioli and portabella marsala pasta.

The packaging, by the Northbrook, Illinois, office of Brandimage Desgrippes & Laga, is new. The redesign is centred on a new brand symbol, an exclamation point, meant to signal “surprisingly great taste,” Chow said. There is also new advertising by the New York office of Nitro, featuring the actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, in a series of humorous commercials. The spots echo the episodic form of the sitcoms for which she is known like “The New Adventures of Old Christine” and “Seinfeld.” The expectation is that the serial spots will be “a great way to keep consumers engaged and cut through the clutter,” said Carlos Veraza, vice-president and general manager for the frozen division of ConAgra.