Well I’m celebrating another birthday this month. I’ve gotten to the age where I don’t like to shout it from the rooftop, but I also appreciate the experiences, fun, and wisdom that each year brings. In all my years of birthdays, I’ve learned that I share my birth month with quite a number of celebrities. But this was the first year I found out I shared it with Oreo. Sigh.

Does it seem odd to anyone else that we celebrate the birthdays of food products? After all, it’s just food, and unhealthy food at that. It’s not like Oreo’s mother wants to do something special for her son. Or maybe Oreo’s siblings want to take their big brother out on the town to celebrate? No. These products are lifeless, inanimate brands. So why all the hoopla over Oreo’s birthday? You guessed it—Big Food’s thirst for fat profits.

So how do brands like Oreo profit off of birthdays? No, it’s not from the gifts they receive (although you’d be surprised at what some crafty, brand fanatics send into companies to help celebrate). Rather, Big Food uses brand birthdays to create multi-layered “events” that enable them to promote their brands, sell more processed food, and create powerful connections with consumers. Let’s take a look at Oreo’s 100th Birthday party as an example.

Generate Big In-Store Displays:  One of the biggest reasons Big Food loves to celebrate brand birthdays is their ability to drive HUGE in-store displays with retailers. Not only do these displays help sell TONS of Oreo’s, but they also help the brand connect with more consumers in-store.

Limited Editions: Birthdays are also used by food manufacturers to launch special, limited edition varieties that help boost sales. Oftentimes these items can’t be shelved with regular items, so these new varieties force retailers to create special displays to promote brands like Oreo.

Social Media:  The goal of all food marketing is to make consumers “adore” brands (aka eat lots of it) and start sharing the brand with their friends and family. Social media is a perfect place to make this happen. On Twitter Oreo is making a splash with a Piñata contest where you can play and win free cookies. And it’s no surprise that Oreo’s birthday has a big presence on Facebook with a “Join the Movement” effort to help “set your inner kid loose.”

This Facebook page also features an “Oreo Turns 100″ video. As you can probably guess, this campaign “helps” us all “reclaim our inner kid” and gives us permission to eat Oreo cookies at any moment we’d like. Now isn’t that special?

Advertising:  As icing on the proverbial birthday cake, Kraft launched new advertising behind Oreo’s 100th birthday event. Much like the Facebook effort, the message of this spot is that eating Oreos help us “reclaim that inner kid.” The commercial kicks off with a contentious Parent Teacher Organization meeting where arguing adults are quickly soothed by trays of Oreos that innocent children bring out for everyone to feast on.

Who knew cookies could be so powerful? Perhaps we should send some over to nuclear arms negotiators? Now while I appreciate that Oreo hasn’t tried to dress itself up as healthy with false or misleading claims like “whole grains” or “no high fructose corn syrup,” the idea that cookies solve life’s problems and help you reclaim your childhood is absolutely absurd. But isn’t that also the honest truth about celebrating a cookie’s birthday? No, I’m not some grinch. I don’t begrudge anyone having a party or an occasional cookie—highly processed or not. What we do have to understand is we’re under attack. Big Food is looking for every way they can to work their unhealthy foods into our life with us smiling and agreeing the whole way. It’s very easy to get sucked in by these events and ads. I know I have fallen victim. But the more we rationally understand how food companies are trying to manipulate us, the better armed we are to make informed choices, say “no,” and stop following their Pied Piper’s tune.

So what’s the good news? Well, birthdays don’t last forever so this soon shall pass. Of course, as soon as I wrote this post I saw Kraft advertising the 75th birthday for Mac & Cheese. Ugh, not again!

As always, if you’ve enjoyed this post, please share it by pasting a link on your Facebook wall, liking it, or emailing it to a friend. And for more inside scoop on the world of food, please subscribe to my blog.

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Do you have a cause that’s near and dear to your heart? Does it make you feel good when you support a special charity? But how about when Big Food companies partner with charitable organizations to promote their brands? Do these companies really care? Although one can’t argue that their donations help many good causes, the honest truth is Big Food isn’t motivated by some altruistic desire. Rather, cause marketing has become yet another strategy they use to grow their brands.

So why has cause marketing become so popular? Well, when used effectively it can work in many powerful ways:

1. Cause marketing humanizes a brand by telling consumers “we care.”
2. It provides an emotional tie-breaker that gives a consumer one more reason to buy a particular brand
3. It can help brands get merchandised—participation in cause platforms like Komen For the Cure can help a brand get valuable merchandising like end-aisle displays or features in retailers’ ads
4. Cause marketing gives consumers a reason to “like” and “share”—when a popular cause is involved, consumers are much more likely to spread the word and talk about a brand on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

But probably the most powerful yet subtle way cause marketing can help products is by strengthening certain credentials, like health, whether the brand deserves it or not.

Campbell’s has long touted the health benefits of eating soup. However over the years high sodium levels have plagued its efforts. In fact, in the 1980s food advocates successfully forced Campbell’s to abandon its “Soup is good food” slogan after arguing soup is too salty to be deemed “good” or “healthy.”

Down but not out, Campbell’s announced a huge sodium reduction effort in 2006. Between launching a line of  reformulated, sodium-reduced soups and establishing long-term goals for further sodium reduction across all soups, it seemed like Campbell’s finally wanted to enact real change. Campbell’s even teamed up with the American Heart Association’s (AHA) “Go Red” effort by launching its “adDress Your Heart” campaign.

Fast forward six years later, Campbell’s is still a huge AHA sponsor pledging more than $3.6 million in 2012. So what’s wrong? Despite recent USDA guidelines that suggest Americans are still consuming way too much sodium, Campbell’s took a dramatic turn and scrapped its sodium-reduction strategy in hopes of luring soup-lovers back to its sodium-drenched fold. Apparently consumers weren’t buying enough of the new, lower-sodium versions. But how can Campbell’s continue its heart health campaign when it has ditched it sodium-reduction efforts and most of its soup line-up has over 1,500 mg of sodium per can?

Using a classic page from Big Food’s playbook, Campbell’s tie-in only applies to a small portion of the company’s soup and food offerings that the AHA has certified as heart healthy. Of course this fact is practically invisible to everyone. Check out Campbell’s logo above. And how about its YouTube video with Monica Potter? And its landing page on Facebook? Would you guess Campbell’s heart health campaign is limited to only a small fraction of Campbell’s portfolio? And what happens when consumers connect Campbell’s “adDress Your Heart” effort with its national advertising campaign entitled, “It’s Amazing What Soup Can Do?” In consumers’ minds Campbell’s soup becomes a veritable superfood.

By using imagery of active, happy, and healthy people, Campbell’s successfully transforms its salty, canned soup into a cure-all for what ails you. Through the use of advertising and misleading cause marketing efforts, Campbell’s has created powerful messages that make people believe canned soup is good for you.

How about the charity partners? Shouldn’t they be doing a better job vetting and managing potential partnerships? Probably, but as this 2010 tie-in between KFC and Komen For The Cure proves, many of these organizations are so pressed to raise money, it seems like they will partner with anyone.

What do you think of Big Food’s contributions to charities? Are they motivated by generosity, or is cause marketing just another way to manipulate consumers to get them eating more processed food?

As always, if you’ve enjoyed this post, please share it by pasting a link on your Facebook wall, liking it, or emailing it to a friend. And for more inside scoop on the world of food, please subscribe to my blog.

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