• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, October 30, 2009

Martha Stewart's associations with quality, taste and entertaining are being leveraged to promote Mars Snackfood U.S.'s Dove Chocolates in the coming months via special packaging and segments on "The Martha Stewart Show."

Just last week, MSLO also announced a partnership with Hain Celestial and its poultry affiliate to leverage the same associations by launching Stewart-branded lines of poultry, baked goods and pastas under existing Hain natural product labels.

Like fortune cookies, chocolates in the Promises line always carry messages and sayings inside their foil wrappers ("Temptation is fun ... giving in is even better"), but tying the messages to a celebrity is a new twist.

Special-edition bags of various varieties of Promises, available now through the holidays, carry 200 different holiday tips and messages from Stewart. In addition, special editions of Dove Silky Smooth Chocolate Hearts carrying MS Valentine's Day messages will be available in January and February.

On television, Stewart will "raise awareness of the brand's promise and commitment to 100% real chocolate" and cocoa sustainability efforts with a segment on her Dec. 9 show "telling the Dove Chocolate bean-to-bar story." Viewers will be informed about the Mars Center for Cocoa Science in Brazil and Dove's Center of Excellence in Elizabethtown, Pa.

On Dec. 10, Stewart will use Promises in a holidays craft segment and encourage viewers to include the candies in their holiday plans.

The marketing program for Dove was designed to take full advantage of MSLO's cross-platform media offerings and the Stewart brand's "equity around celebrations and entertaining," MSLO EVP media sales and marketing Janet Balis confirmed in the announcement.

This will not be the first time that Stewart's show has featured quality chocolate brands. Another recent segment had Micah Carr-Hill, "head of taste" for the Green & Black's Organic lines of chocolate products, showing viewers how to conduct a gourmet chocolate tasting.

Earlier this year, Mars teamed with E. & J. Gallo Winery for a more direct cross-company co-promotion. For Valentine's Day, the Dove and Gallo brands implemented an in-store program promoting the pairing of the chocolates and wines as "the perfect indulgent experience" for consumers. The program used bottleneck pamphlets to offer rebates and coupons for buying both brands' products.