Bolthouse Farms, a leading grower of carrots in the U.S., came to us in the hopes of increasing carrot consumption. Consumer sentiment was indifferent and generally bored with carrots. We needed to overcome carrots’ reputation as just another boring vegetable. The product truth about carrots is that they are crunchy, neon-orange, addicting and fun to eat – qualities shared by many of our favorite junk foods. So we re-launched carrots as junk food to generate new appeal for an old veggie, and challenge the very notion of what it means to be junk food.

To be the ultimate junk food, carrots needed to look and act like junk food. So we re-launched carrots in junk-food packaging, using three differently styled bags – ‘extreme,’ ‘chic’ and ‘futuristic.’The new junk-food packages hit grocery store shelves in two test markets – Syracuse and Cincinnati. They were sold in the veggie section, right next to all the “conventional” veggies. Also inside the grocery store, grocery cart ads and in-store signage in the snack, beer and veggie aisles playfully challenged shoppers with the notion of carrots as junk food.The packaging was also sold from customised, junk-food-style vending machines that were placed in local high schools, right alongside the usual vending machines stocked with chips and candy.

And each of the three new packages featured its own satirical junk-food-style commercial that ran in the test markets during prime-time viewing.

Despite running in only two small U.S. test markets, media outlets quickly caught wind of the campaign, sparking a wave of worldwide news coverage totaling 740 million media impressions to date, valued at $14 million. The campaign was featured in publications and programs including The New York Times, CNN, USA Today, Associated Press, Fox News, Huffington Post, and Saturday Night Live. It was also championed by hundreds of nutrition blogs, disrupting the predictable cultural conversation around healthy eating. In the test markets, sales spiked up 12% in just under a month.