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Villareal Irone A. Module 8

This case study examines the marketing strategy of packaging and promoting baby carrots like junk food in order to appeal to children and young adults. The strategy includes packaging baby carrots in bags resembling junk food brands and installing carrot vending machines in schools. While some argue this could mislead children, the campaign aims to leverage the branding power of junk food. Marketing directly to young consumers is likely more effective than marketing to parents, as the young consumers need persuading that carrots could be as desirable a snack as chips. However, the strategy risks creating a social dilemma by associating carrots with junk food and a temporal dilemma in constantly needing to modify the marketing to remain relevant.

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Cynel Javier
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549 views

Villareal Irone A. Module 8

This case study examines the marketing strategy of packaging and promoting baby carrots like junk food in order to appeal to children and young adults. The strategy includes packaging baby carrots in bags resembling junk food brands and installing carrot vending machines in schools. While some argue this could mislead children, the campaign aims to leverage the branding power of junk food. Marketing directly to young consumers is likely more effective than marketing to parents, as the young consumers need persuading that carrots could be as desirable a snack as chips. However, the strategy risks creating a social dilemma by associating carrots with junk food and a temporal dilemma in constantly needing to modify the marketing to remain relevant.

Uploaded by

Cynel Javier
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Case Study:

Marketing Baby Carrots like Junk Food

1. Prepare a case analysis (with introduction, analysis, conclusion, and recommendations).


We know that junk food when we see it, and maybe we know something else, too: It’s delicious!
Feel free to reject that point of view if you like, but farmers who grow carrots have decided to
embrace it. They hired an advertising agency that has landed on a strategy of promoting the root
vegetable as if it were junk food. Most notably, they sell baby carrots in plastic bags that
explicitly reference processed snacks, like Doritos. Related tongue-in-cheek TV spots end by
pointing out that baby carrots now come in junk-food packaging.

This campaign is aimed at kids and young adults and even includes the installation of some
carrot vending machines in schools. Some observers have dismissed this strategy as an insult to
the intelligence of children, or argued that even if it works, kids will be let down when carrots
turn out to be distinctly unlike salty chips. Still, while it’s hard to believe that carrotmania is
going to sweep youth culture anytime soon, the campaign’s attempt to leech off the power of
junk-food branding isn’t completely disconnected from reality.

I believe that marketing baby carrots to young consumers is likely to be more effectivethan
marketing them to parents of young consumers. I believe this because parents already knowbaby
carrots are healthy and would probably prefer their kids eat them. The young consumers arethe
ones who need to think that they would want to choose those as a snack over junk food. If
theyoung consumer can rationalize with that idea then they will choose baby carrots over chips.

I think the marketing of baby carrots raises a social dilemma in that marketing them asjunk food
can place a negative connotation in peoples minds. The marketer is choosing to marketit this way
for his own benefit of making more sales. I think it raises a temporal dilemma in thatthey will
have to continue to find ways to modify the baby carrots to keep them relevant, in do-

2. Read and analyze the case. Include answers for the following discussion questions:

(a) Which is likely to be more effective – marketing baby carrots to young consumers or to
parents of young consumers? Why?
Despite all the cheerleading for healthy eating, Americans still eat only about 1 serving of fruit
per day, on average. And our veggie consumption, according to an analysis from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, falls short, So with the back-to-school season underway and
families thinking about what to pack in the lunch box, grocers are hoping to entice young
consumers and their parents to the produce aisle by creating new, kid-focused snacking sections
(b) Does the marketing of baby carrots raise any social or temporal dilemmas?
No, the very essence of marketing your product is to earn potential customers and profit. The
only guys who can point a finger at baby carrots for social dilemma are perhaps the other junks
foods company as they see it as perpetration for the image of junk food

(c) Is there a potential “dark side” to marketing baby carrots as junk food?
Every marketable product has that potential “dark side”. As of the baby carrots however, it is the
“rational approach” of the baby carrots.

(d) Do you agree with this strategy of marketing baby carrots as junk food instead of as a
healthy snack?

Junk foods are usually that packaged snacks containing low nutritionalvalue whereas baby
carrots is a high nutritious snack and may create adilemma among customers

Villareal, Irone A.

BSBA 3A-MARKETING

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