Baby Carrots: Eat 'em Like Junk Food.
The Baby Carrots client wanted to make their product appealing to teenagers and kids. The challenge was that baby carrots were perceived as boring and healthy. They needed Crispin Porter + Bogusky to transform baby carrots into an exciting, desirable food, mimicking junk food's appeal to drive consumption among this young audience. The goal was to shift perceptions and significantly increase sales.
Creative Idea
Baby Carrots packaged and advertised themselves like junk food to make healthy eating cool for kids.
Baby Carrots created junk food-style marketing to make healthy vegetables seem cool and appealing to teenagers and kids. By mimicking the packaging, advertising style, and attitude of unhealthy snacks, they transformed baby carrots from a boring vegetable into an exciting, desirable food that young people would want to eat.
Selling the Original Orange Doodles
Treating Produce Like Pepsi
The campaign was spearheaded by Jeff Dunn, the former President of Coca-Cola North America, who applied big-soda tactics to the produce aisle. To maintain total secrecy during development, Crispin Porter + Bogusky used the internal code name "Carrots" - a name so literal that agency employees assumed it was a decoy for a massive brand like Nike. The strategy centered on a subversive truth: everyone knows vegetables are healthy, so the marketing shouldn't mention health at all. Instead, the team focused on "emotive" branding, moving carrots from utilitarian clear bags into crinkly, neon-colored packaging designed to mimic Doritos and Cheetos.
Microphones and Mountain Jumps
The production leaned heavily into junk food tropes, featuring high-budget TV spots with heavy metal soundtracks and "extreme" stunts, such as a shopping cart jumping off a mountain. The digital execution included the Xtreme Xrunch Kart iPhone game, which used the device's microphone to detect the actual sound of a user crunching a carrot to trigger in-game turbo boosts. This tech-driven engagement reached users in over 75 countries.
Beating the Junk Food Giants
The results proved that "unbranded" commodities could compete with global snack leaders. In test markets like Syracuse and Cincinnati, sales jumped by up to 13%, while custom-branded vending machines in high schools sold 80-90 packs per week, rivaling traditional snack sales. The campaign generated over 500 million PR impressions and an estimated $15 million in earned media value. Beyond the numbers, it left a cultural mark with "Scarrots" - Halloween packs featuring glow-in-the-dark tattoos - and the iconic slogan: "Our crunch can beat up your crunch."
Creative Strategy Deconstructed
Company
Bolthouse Farms possessed the industrial scale to repackage baby carrots in crinkly, neon snack bags and distribute them through traditional junk food channels like vending machines.
Category
The vegetable category historically relied on earnest, health-focused messaging that emphasized nutritional benefits, making produce feel like a parental obligation rather than a choice.
Customer
Younger consumers crave the sensory intensity, rebellious attitude, and social 'cool' associated with junk food, often viewing healthy eating as boring or unappealing.
Culture
A rising cultural movement against childhood obesity led to the removal of sodas and chips from schools, creating a void for snacks that felt fun.
Company
Bolthouse Farms possessed the industrial scale to repackage baby carrots in crinkly, neon snack bags and distribute them through traditional junk food channels like vending machines.
Category
The vegetable category historically relied on earnest, health-focused messaging that emphasized nutritional benefits, making produce feel like a parental obligation rather than a choice.
Strategy:
Hijack junk food’s rebellious aesthetic and sensory marketing to make healthy vegetables feel like an extreme, indulgent snack.
Customer
Younger consumers crave the sensory intensity, rebellious attitude, and social 'cool' associated with junk food, often viewing healthy eating as boring or unappealing.
Culture
A rising cultural movement against childhood obesity led to the removal of sodas and chips from schools, creating a void for snacks that felt fun.
Strategy:
Hijack junk food’s rebellious aesthetic and sensory marketing to make healthy vegetables feel like an extreme, indulgent snack.
Results
The integrated campaign ran in just two test markets. It sparked 740 million PR impressions. It received extensive media coverage from publications like USA Today, Food Business, MSNBC, The New York Times, and Fast Company. Producers hoped the effort would double a $1 billion market (implied future outcome, not a past result).
740 million
PR impressions
Strategy Technique
Shift the Context
The campaign shifted baby carrots from a healthy vegetable context to a junk food context. This recontextualization made them desirable to a youth audience.
Explore Technique
Creative Technique
Use Another Category's cliché
Baby Carrots adopted the entire marketing style and attitude of junk food. This made a boring vegetable exciting by mimicking unhealthy snack clichés.
Explore Technique
Craft Breakdown
This campaign's craft is exceptional in its audacious art direction, boldly rebranding a healthy food as 'junk food' through a cohesive and impactful creative execution across various touchpoints.
The radical reimagining of baby carrots through diverse and striking packaging, merchandising, and advertising visuals successfully mimics the aesthetics of junk food, making the healthy snack visually appealing.
The creation of junk food-esque packaging and custom vending machines demonstrates strong production design, tangibly integrating the core concept into the retail and consumer environment.
The concise and provocative tagline 'Eat 'Em Like Junk Food' brilliantly encapsulates the campaign's audacious premise, reinforced by the distinctive ad copy and voiceovers.
The production of the 'Xtreme' and 'Overt' ad styles exhibits strong cinematography, employing distinct visual language to portray the newly branded baby carrots with dynamic and suggestive flair.
The campaign's magic comes from the complete synergy between the bold, disruptive strategic idea and its meticulous execution across visual branding, physical product design, and provocative advertising, all working together to redefine a product category.
