The Television Bureau of Canada says that TV advertising is good for you, and it has the results of a mock campaign to prove it.
A mysterious five-week TV campaign extolling the virtues of broccoli that debuted in January, wasn’t for broccoli at all; it was for the medium itself to prove that if TV could sell broccoli it could sell anything.
The TVB’s “Miracle Food” campaign purported to show how broccoli’s health benefits were even more remarkable than “miracles”–such as surviving a fall from a plane without a parachute. The spots ended with a super directing viewers to TheMiracleFood.ca.
According to TVB, the campaign led to Facebook fan pages attracting over 17,000 followers, and 15 spoofs on YouTube.
Most importantly, the TVB also found that broccoli sales increased 8% year-over-year in Ontario and British Columbia where sales were tracked, with 13% of consumers saying they had purchased at least one more bunch of broccoli in their last shopping trip compared to the pre-campaign period, and an additional 483,238 pounds of broccoli was sold during the campaign period.
The idea was born in the middle of 2009 to challenge widespread reports that TV’s popularity was waning, said Theresa Treutler, president and CEO of the Television Bureau of Canada. “We were so frustrated by these repeated misconstrued headlines talking about the death of television,” she said.
TVB issued an RFP and shortlisted five agencies before hiring John St. “Their idea was so outstanding and so intrigued us,” she said. Other TV groups in the U.S. and U.K. have conducted similar campaigns to promote the power of TV, but John St.’s idea was totally original, she said.
The results of the program have been posted to the TVB website {TVB.ca} as a case study.
“We believe that this case study will be helpful to marketers and their advertising agencies,” said Treutler.
According to TVB, aided awareness for the campaign hit 90% of respondents, while unaided ad awareness reached 65%.
