Purdue Farms has refocused its marketing campaign to de-emphasize humor and respond to consumer concerns about the companies that produce their food,
the
New York Times
reported.
The ads will still feature company chairman Jim Perdue, who has appeared in Perdue Farms ads for 20 years and is the son of pioneering pitchman Frank Perdue. But in the new campaign, Perdue is joined by company employees, including the chief veterinarian, along with a farm family that raises Perdue chickens, according to the
Times
report. The new ads are shot at actual Perdue Farms facilities and focus on how the chickens are raised rather than taking a humorous approach, the
Times
article said.
All that is embodied by a new ad theme, “We believe in a better chicken,” which replaces “A healthy obsession with chicken.” (The longtime slogan during the Frank Perdue era was “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.”)
Perdue Farms’ chief marketing officer, John Bartelme, told the
Times
that the company’s new ads take “a documentary-style approach.” Greg DiNoto, an official at the company’s ad agency, told the
Times
that although past ads “used humor to great effect,”
“at the end of the day we felt the honest, straight-from-the-heart truth about Perdue was more appropriate for the times.”
In many ways, the campaign echoes the no-nonsense “bullets of truth” that were delivered by frank Perdue, he added, as “we go full circle, back to ‘Our product is better and let’s tell people in a real way what we do — and do not do — to make a great chicken.'”
(Source:
New York Times,
June 26, 2011.)
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