Food makers still have appetite for advertising

Playing up price comparisons keeps brands in the minds of consumers, said Frank Luby, a partner with Simon-Kucher & Partners, a strategy and marketing consulting firm that focuses on pricing.

Companies that raise prices — Kraft's were up an average of 7 percent in the most recent quarter — risk losing consumers, he said, so ads touting bargains make sense.

"If you're stressing value you're reminding people as they start making these price-value determinations, perception-wise that these brands still have something going for them," he said.

Heinz, Hormel and Sara Lee are also boosting their ad budgets this year.

H.J. Heinz Co., the Pittsburgh-based maker of Heinz Ketchup, Weight Watchers Smart Ones products and Ore-Ida potatoes, recently said it hopes to increase consumer marketing by 8 percent to 12 percent in its new fiscal year as part of a two-year growth plan.

Hormel Foods Corp. is likewise planning a boost and is expanding the number of brands it advertises, including a campaign around Dinty Moore stews, said Jeffrey M. Ettinger, president and chief executive. The Austin, Minn.-based company, also known for Spam, is running print ads for Dinty Moore drawing on themes of men and outdoor activities. The brand saw sales up at least 20 percent in the most recent quarter.

Starting in September, a multimillion dollar campaign will link Sara Lee's Soft & Smooth bread — which has sales of more than $200 million a year — with Disney's popular "High School Musical" enterprise, said Tim Zimmer, vice president of Sara Lee Fresh Bakery.

TV spots will feature characters such as Chad Danforth, played by Corbin Bleu, and Taylor McKessie, played by Monique Coleman. The campaign includes a sweepstakes to win a screening of the new "High School Musical" movie with Bleu, and promotions on 40 million bread packages and in 15,000 in-store displays. An Internet component allows people to look up the characters' "favorite recipes" such as Taylor's "Sweet as Honey" peanut butter sandwich.

This is an example of more pointed marketing, said Domenick Celentano, an adjunct business professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, N.J. That kind of approach is more useful now that consumers are becoming more segmented and shopping for different brands in different stores — especially with bargains in mind, he said.

Companies are increasingly going online and targeting individuals such as "High School Musical" fans, he said.

"Mass marketing is sort of dead and really what companies are looking at very heavily is using the Internet to get to the narrower-focused consumer," he said.

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