If Cookie Monster says it’s good to eat blueberries, will kids eat them?
Sunkist and Sesame Workshop hope so. The two are set to launch a new summer retail promotion that plays up the healthfulness of Sunkist strawberries and blueberries with help from the Sesame Street Muppets. This marks the second effort for the partnership.
“It’s a fun way of helping kids eat their colors by having that tool of different colored characters,” Maura Regan, VP and general manager of global licensing for Sesame Workshop, says. “We also know that when you use one of our characters it really is a driver, in terms of having kids make that healthier choice.”
The promotion begins this month in 8,000 to 10,000 grocery stores nationwide, where shoppers will find strawberry and blueberry packaging with labels that feature Elmo and Cookie Monster. The campaign, which also includes P-O-P materials and consumer promotions, ends in August. Sesame Workshop also plans to engage its other partners — Fisher-Price, Procter & Gamble and Beaches Resorts — in cross-marketing efforts, such as coupons, on-pack promotions and sweepstakes that dangle trips to Beaches Resorts locations.
And this fall, Sesame Workshop plans to incorporate the berry promotion with its celebration of Tickle Me Elmo’s 10th anniversary, set to be a lengthy extravaganza of a host of events and promotions.
“Adding the colorful Sesame Street character line-up to deep red strawberries and bright blueberries is another way to encourage kids and their families to eat a variety of healthy, colorful, fresh produce,” said Robert Verloop, Sunkist VP-marketing.
The promotion furthers Sunkist and Sesame Workshop’s partnership to promote healthy eating habits to both moms and kids. The first promotion, held over the winter, focused on citrus with help from Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Zoe. At the time, a Web site was developed to support the partnership at Sunkist.com/sesamestreet. The Web site is being refreshed for the berry promotion, Regan said.
A Sesame Street research project reported last summer that preschoolers were more likely to choose broccoli over chocolate when the broccoli had an Elmo sticker on it (and the chocolate had a sticker of an unknown character).
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