From left, CEO Karen Koslow and Senior Vice President Fran Greenberg of Antidote 360.
What better way to introduce a modern-day ice pop ”“ in this case, a frozen fruit dessert in a tube ”“Â than the kids”™ equivalent of the Academy Awards?
A recent advertising campaign for Del Monte”™s Fruit Chillers had Antidote 360, a Tarrytown-based communications agency, make the product relevant to its target market: families with children.
“As Del Monte was launching the tubes, we tied it in with the Nickelodeon”™s ”˜Kid”™s Choice Awards,”™” Koslow said. “It”™s a dual platform, because there”™s equal viewership between moms and kids. The target is health-aware moms that are looking to do better by their kids, so they”™d rather them have something that”™s fruit-based, even if it might have some sugars and things in it, rather than just eating salty potato chips.”
Antidote 360 is a new division of Think 360, a marketing communications agency, which was founded by Koslow in 2001. The agency works with packaged goods companies, or “pretty much anything you can buy in a package at a drug store or grocery store,” with clients such as Heinz, Crayola, Pepperidge Farm and Hain Celestial Group.
Antidote 360 was a brainchild of Koslow and senior vice president Fran Greenberg, who worked together at another agency prior to Think 360”™s founding.
“We believed there was an opportunity to focus in the health and wellness area, and that there was more we could help clients with,” Koslow said. “We feel that a lot of brands are out there attempting to be in the space, attempting to talk to consumers about health and wellness, position their brands in that conversation, and we don”™t think everybody”™s doing it as well as they could be.”
The challenge in marketing is to find and target the consumer segment that a product is most relevant to, Koslow said.
For example, a solely organic user has a different view of health and wellness than an overweight mother trying to, for the first time, look at how to eat healthy.
“People really into natural organic foods won”™t eat a 100-calorie package of Oreos,” Koslow said. “However, with a health-aware mom, someone just trying to manage their diet and the intake of unhealthy foods for their kids, that 100-calorie pack might become extremely relevant.”
There is a spectrum of consumers relative in their interest and commitment to health and wellness, Greenberg said.
“I think the environment has really changed in the last decade,” Greenberg said. “Health and wellness before used to be about dieting, weight management or avoiding disease. But now there”™s a plethora of issues including planetary issues like sustainability and food safety and even cultural issues now with the rising coast of health insurance. All these issues impact how people address their health and wellness, and it”™s just a really complex environment and it”™s very much a struggle for marketers to really keep an update on what”™s going on and how to speak to the individuals who are interested in health and wellness.”
To help clients with all their marketing needs, Antidote 360 includes a health and wellness knowledge bank, a reference database of information on books, blogs, medical expertise and popular thought “all captured, indexed and constantly updated.”
Other aspects include a database that integrates learning about consumer attitudes with facts about consumer activity and a group of experts in the health and wellness field who serve as advisory professionals.
Greenberg said in a decade, a third of the population will be over age 50, making them a prime target group for marketers.
“You”™re going to see a lot of opportunities in marketers trying to reach that audience, because they”™re a very influential audience, particularly within health and wellness,” Greenberg said. “People are looking to live longer and also prevent health issues from occurring so that they can lead a longer, healthier and more joyous life.”
