Marketing healthy food to kids

A whole crew of new and old children's characters are getting into the green and healthy business, with companies licensing their images to sell everything from baby carrots, clementines and grapes to organic cereal and pastas designed specifically for children.

Nickelodeon's SpongeBob Square Pants currently adorns bags of spinach, organic frozen edamame and more recently white and yellow plums. His fellow Nickelodeon cartoon character, Dora the Explorer hawking pears, apples and baby carrots. And the letter of the day is "O" for organic for Sesame Street's Elmo, Cookie Monster and Big Bird, whose toothless smiles grace boxes of organic alphabet pasta, cereal, crackers and cookies.

Though it's a fraction of the $45 billion entertainment licensing industry, the use of characters from well-known children's programs to sell organic, natural or healthy food products is a growing niche populated by major companies including Disney and smaller corporations such as the Melville-based Hain Celestial Group, which has been in the natural and organic industry for over a decade. Many of the companies that own these characters will be at the Licensing International Expo 2007, scheduled to run Tuesday through Thursday at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan.

"In the past, it was easy for a licensor to attach his character to a snack food and high sugar content food because kids normally go for that kind of stuff," said Charles M. Riotto, president of the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers' Association. But now, he said, licensors are "feeling more of a responsibility to promote good values and good health, so I think we're going to see a lot more of these strategies that say that the licensor is concerned with the well being of fans and consumers."

Those in the industry of licensing children's characters note that addressing the growing problem of childhood obesity and being overweight has become a national priority. Health professionals have been demanding more responsibility from marketers who advertise food and beverages to children. And, at the same time, the market for organic and natural foods and products has expanded to satisfy an increasing consumer base.

Entertainment companies have also incorporated health initiatives into their programs, events and Web sites. Nickelodeon says it now dedicates about $30 million a year to a health and wellness agenda -- which includes public service announcements, programming and community grants -- plus 10 percent of its air time. Sesame Street's Healthy Habits for Life offers parents and kids games, a video and tips with characters encouraging children to eat fruits and vegetables.

Last fall, the Walt Disney Co. adopted new food guidelines for its licensed products and food served in park and resort restaurants, capping calories, eliminating trans fats and limiting fat and sugar content. DreamWorks Animation's Shrek has a "Go Green" message, which highlights McDonald's "healthy" food choices such as salads, chicken sandwiches, apple slices and low-fat milk. And the Kellogg Company, which doesn't advertise to children under 6, announced Thursday that, by the end of 2008, it will stop advertising products falling below its new nutritional standards to children under 12.

Sesame Street approached the Melville-based Hain Celestial Group, an International corporation with a number of natural and organic brands, as it was launching its Healthy Habits for Life initiative, said Maureen Putnam, Hain Celestial's chief marketing officer.

Hain Celestial started out with about 10 Sesame Street cereals and snacks under the Earth's Best brand and now have more than 20 products -- all billed as tailored to children's nutrition needs with iron, zinc and six B vitamins. Hain Celestial would not discuss sales numbers, but noted that the Sesame Street products have far surpassed yearly forecasts.

"It wasn't just that they [Sesame Street] wanted a licensing agreement to be an income flow," Putnam said. "They wanted a licensing agreement consistent with the messaging they were giving on their program."

Nickelodeon has been involved in drawing attention to children's health issues for over four years with campaigns such as its Let's Just Play initiative, the company said, and in 2005 made a concerted effort to see if there were business opportunities licensing its characters for healthy food products.

Licensing for produce was new terrain and the search for partners was slow at first, said Leigh Anne Brodsky, president of Nickelodeon and Viacom consumer products. SpongeBob appeared on the packaging of Boskovich Farms spinach in August 2005 and he as well as Dora were featured on the packaging of Grimmway Farms baby carrots that same month. Success was almost instant, Brodsky said. When others saw that these items were selling, she said, other fruit and vegetable companies were ready to jump aboard.

Now Dora and SpongeBob are marketing frozen edamame and, this summer, will appear on packaging for plumcots, plums and nectarines. Various Nickelodeon cartoon characters will adorn bags of apples, pears and, this month, its cherries. In August, Green Giant will launch SpongeBob on its bags of green beans, Dora and Diego on its broccoli and corn with sauce and all three on its cans of corn and green beans.

"Kids first discover these characters through programming," Brodsky said. "They want to continue that relationship and they want to experience them in their home and play. So I think that using characters in this way can be effective."

Developing more healthy eating habits has become a cause taken up by a broad range of companies like Scholastic and Penguin as well as the Walt Disney Co., DreamWorks Animation SKG and McDonald's.

Clifford the Big Red Dog, a Scholastic property which has been around for 40 years, reigns over a licensing kingdom of toys, games, children's apparel and, more recently, organic cereal introduced in 2005 called Clifford Crunch.

Another well-known children's icon, Peter Rabbit, has made its way into organics, starting first in the United Kingdom with vegetable chips, cereal, and granola bars with no added refined sugars, no salt and no trans fat. Buxton Foods, the producer of these foods, soon will introduce a similar selection in the United States. Diane Cain, director of consumer products and marketing for Penguin Young Readers Group, described this expansion into organics as befitting Peter Rabbit's creator, Beatrix Potter, who was, herself, a farmer and conservationist. said

"She was green before her time," Cain said.

Some children's health advocates are skeptical about this new licensing movement, pointing out that many of these companies' "healthy" campaigns conflict with the use of these very same characters to sell sugary snacks and beverages.

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood launched a letter-writing campaign asking the Department of Health to retire Shrek and his pals as spokespersons for its childhood obesity prevention campaign, saying Shrek promotions for snack foods and high-sugar products undermine Shrek's message about healthy eating. The Center for Science in the Public Interest issued a 2005 report finding that 88 percent of the food ads aired during 28 hours of Nickelodeon television programming were of poor nutritional quality.

"There's an inherent conflict of interest between promoting healthy living and being a pitch man for junk food, and that goes for Nickelodeon as well," said Susan Linn, a psychologist and director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. "The fact that their characters are on carrots doesn't negate the fact that they are also on cookies and candies and other things."

But these companies say they are striving for balance. "DreamWorks Animation is committed to being socially responsible in the way our characters are used with licensed products," said Anne Globe, the studio's head of worldwide marketing and consumer products.

Nickelodeon noted that the network began looking to license its characters for fresh fruits and vegetables before the strategy became popular. "We've been pounding the pavement since 2002 trying to get these licensing deals off the ground," said Sherice Torres, a Nickelodeon and Viacom consumer products vice president. "It's taken this long to get this off the ground because they really didn't think there was a market for marketing healthy food for kids."

Both Nickelodeon and Disney say that their push has led their licensees to revamp their products.

Since Disney announced new food guidelines in October, the company has replaced its restaurants' default selection for sides and drinks with healthier alternatives like water, apple sauce or carrots. Fries and soft drinks are available at no extra cost, but Harry J. Dolman, executive vice president for food, health and beauty in Disney's consumer products division, said that 70 percent of the customers served take the healthy option.

"A lot of healthy food choices is about convenience," Dolman said. "So if it is as convenient to pick up a bag of sliced apples as it is to hand a child a candy bar, then the chance is the child will eat more sliced apples."

Source: newsday.com

Publication date: 6/19/2007

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