Stuart Elliot covered a very creative campaign by, gulp, ConAgra Foods, with their Healthy Choice line. Never mind that it may be an oxymoron to brand a frozen meal line, "Healthy Choice", but they found a way to use humor to attract consumers. Julia Louis-Dreyfus appears in ads that are like skits of her actually evaluating appearing on these ads – questioning the product, and then in the process learning about it. EXTREMELY CREATIVE. Bold. Probably will pay off nicely.
Seeing the sugar lobby take up the Corn Refiners Association is amusing. Each peddles empty calories in the form of sugar or high fructose corn syrup. HFCS should be appropriately avoided as it’s artificial construct and introduction in the early 80s correlates too closely to the rise of obesity and the diabetis epidemic. It is downright dishonest to call HFCS natural, as the refiners aim to do.
But it is also true that ‘an empty calorie is an empty calorie’ and while some sweet in moderation can add to our taste, people aiming for a healthy diet should focus on wholesome ingredients that have nutritional depth. Hence KIND.
Naif Al Mutawa is a dear friend who defines social entrepreneurship. He is creating positive role models for young Muslims a la Hollywood. Like Marvel and Action Comics before him, Naif created a set of iconic super-heroes – but they each are Muslims who embody one powerful benevolent trait drawn from Islam’s 99 characteristics attributed to G’d. One has extraordinary kindness. The other exhibits exceptional creativity. Beyond cartoons, they now just opened The 99 Entertainment Village!
Behind the scenes, in the green room at the Oscars, what are they serving the celebrities? KIND Fruit and Nut bars.
The Oscars’ Green Room is the exclusive territory of Hollywood’s A-list: award presenters, winners, and Academy big-wigs. So when you see your favorite actor or actress on stage, there’s a good chance they were snacking on KIND just a few minutes earlier.
Thanks to Phil Walotsky, Laura Ziskin and Michael Seligman for sharing the #1 healthy snack in the US with the Oscar winners!
So the other day my 2 year old daughter came barging into my room saying: "quiere nacky, quiere nacky"
translation- my daughter learned the word snack a long time ago, but pronounces it nack, and when she discovered "Kind Snacks: she decided to call them "nacky"
so after asking for nacky, she starts banging on my locked office door where she knows I keep the Kind bars, with increased frustration asking for nacky.
I finally open a bar and hand her a piece, she is satisfied, but wants more, she can eat a whole kind bar quite fast. (did I mention she is 2). once it is finished she is quite upset, wanting more nacky.
finally I pick up the phone and tell her to ask her uncle daniel for Kind, of course he doesn’t answer but she leaves him a sweet message:
"tio, quiere mas Kind" translation- uncle want more Kind
From my brother’s daughter:
KIND Nut Delight got a nice endorsement from NY Giants’ nutritionist Heidi Skolnik on the Today Show earlier this month. She recommended it as an energy boosting snack whose natural ingredients you can see and pronounce.(tm)
KIND was the only nutritional bar to make it into Good Housekeeping’s listing of the 100 best convenience foods.
This follows on KIND Mango Macadamia being chosen as the Best Product of the Year out of all thousands of natural food products introduced at the Natural Products Expo earlier this fall (Oct 2008).
BusinessWeek’s Stacey Perman asked me to share this opportunity with social entrepreneurs:
…BusinessWeek’s upcoming roundup of the most promising social entrepreneurs in the U.S. – those who aim to both turn a profit and solve social problems. We are now in the process of searching for great candidates, and I want to ask for your help.
Please take a look at the criteria below, then complete the http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/social_entrepreneurs/poll.html and pass this note along to your colleagues. I also hope that you will include mention of the roundup on your own Web site or newsletter. If you are interested you can certainly nominated Peaceworks for this as well.
What are we looking for? Candidates should be for-profit companies based in the U.S. that are tackling social problems in new and innovative ways here or abroad. Concepts are great, but we do insist that companies that warrant coverage have been in operation for at least one year. The call for nominations begins January 13, 2009 and ends February 20, 2009. When this nomination period ends, our staff and a few renowned members of the business and social enterprise community will narrow the candidates to 20 finalists – each of whom will be profiled on our Web site. Readers will be able vote for the finalist whom they feel holds the most promise and we will announce the top five vote-getters on May 2, 2009.
Again, nominations are being accepted through February 20, 2009 via this http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/social_entrepreneurs/poll.html I encourage you to participate and help spread the word. It’s an exciting way to participate directly in identifying and recognizing social entrepreneurs who are changing the world.
Steven Heydt from Elite Island Resorts came up with a creative promotion that not only aligns investors’ depressed moods to the plus of a vacation in his chain, but also landed them broad media coverage, like this story in the New York Times.