ConAgra Foods, the company behind the Manwich brand, will tout the nutritional value of the meal's finishing sauce in a new advertising campaign, utilizing the brand's first-ever 30-second television spots (previous executions were limited to 15 seconds).

"Our key learning from consumer focus groups was that moms were unaware of Manwich's nutritional value, and this insight led our strategic development," company representative Becky Niiya, tells Marketing Daily. "The fact that Manwich has a full serving of vegetables in each serving was something we were keeping to ourselves and had never communicated to consumers before."

To do so, ConAgra opted for the longer television commercials, which lent themselves to a more "in-depth" approach, Niiya says. The commercials, from DDB San Francisco, continue the brand's theme of fun family mealtimes. One spot depicts a girl in an oversized Manwich costume eating dinner with her family. "The name of the play is 'The Farmer's Vegetable Patch,' right?" the father asks his daughter, who explains the vegetable benefit. "So you're made of vegetables, yet you're eating vegetables?" the father asks. "Exactly," the girl answers.

A second spot shows the same girl at the play, dressing down an incredulous boy dressed as an ear of corn. As the boy expresses disbelief that the girl is dressed as a meat sandwich, the girl points out that corn is a grain, not a vegetable. Both spots end with the tagline "Meat your vegetables."

"The goal of the Manwich campaign is to give moms another reason to enjoy Manwich and feel good about serving it to their families more frequently," Niiya says. "We see the full serving of vegetables as a key point of difference for Manwich when compared to its competitive set of other quick family meals."

She stressed that the company wasn't moving away from its positioning as a satisfying family meal, nor the well-known tagline "A sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal." Rather, the new commercials are intended to give moms another reason to consider the product.

"We want consumers to learn from the campaign that Manwich is not only fun, but nutritious as well," Niiya says.

The commercials will air on cable networks such as USA, Lifetime and TLC, as well as on YouTube.

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