Hungry-Man’s King Size Adventure
BRANDWEEK, March 22, 2004
By Emily Fromm
2004 Reggie Gold Award Announced By PMA
It was a classic “Duh” moment: When marketers
for Hungry-Man frozen dinners and for the TV series The King
of Queens found each other, they realized they’d stumbled
upon a match made in cross-promotion heaven.
For one thing, their products were eminently compatible: The
series, one of the top performers in CBS’ prime time
lineup, follows the misadventures of Doug Heffernan, a husky
outer borough deliveryman.
It’s not hard to imagine that such a meat-and-potatoes
guy would eat a Hungry-Man dinner, which provides a pound
and a half of meat and potatoes. In fact, the product’s
tagline could be Heffernan’s personal motto: “
I know what I like, and I like a lot of it!”
Also, the thing was right. Pinnacle Foods had just bought
Hungry-Man from Campbell Soup Co. and was looking for a way
to get consumers excited about the brand. King of Queens had
just picked up for syndication by Sony Pictures Television,
which wanted to promote the show’s five days a week
airings in September.
And thus a “Duh!” moment was born. Alyse Kobin,
head of Pinnacle’s entertainment marketing agency, was
on the phone with David Palmer, then Sony’s svp-marketing
and promos. “David and I were talking about our clients,”
Kobin said, “and I said, “Hungry-Man” and
David goes, “Bingo!” And I went, “Bingo!!”
with two exclamation points. We approached (Pinnacle’s)
Andy Reichgut and Dianne Jacobs and they just cracked up.
It was really quite brilliant.”
The promotion began in June, when a “King-Sized Adventure”
sweeps was touted on 20 millions product boxes (winners got
to visit the KOQ set in L.A.). In-store elements from static
clings to wobblers dressed up frozen-food aisles and a full
page FSI was distributed in 20 of Hungry-Man’s top local
markets the day before KOQ’s syndication debut.
But the real coup was a cameo appearance in a KOQ episode,
where leading man Kevin James took a Hungry-Man dinner out
of the freezer and told his wife, Carrie (Leah Remini),
that it would taste better- and fill him up more- than her
cooking.
Getting the product written into the script was easy, Kobin
said, because the producers were keen about the level of
Hungry-Man support – not to mention that it wasn’t
much of a plot stretch to begin with: “I mean, Kevin’
a big boy,” she said. He’s not eating a Slim-Fast.”
Ultimately, both partners were left feeling satisfied: KOQ
outperformed 88% of all syndicated programs among men aged
25-34, while show exposure helped bulk up dinner sales during
the promo period.
Program: Hungry-Man’s
King Size Adventure
Marketer: Pinnacle Foods, Cherry
Hill, N; Sony Pictures TV, Los Angeles
Agencies: Brand Building, New
York: Kobin Enterprises, New York
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