• Forbes CMO Network, Friday, August 21, 2009 10:43 AM

ConAgra Foods CEO Gary Rodkin is on a quest to find "the big, singular insight that will drive behavior change," Helen Coster reports, and he's using theories about consumers' buying habits to convince grocery stores to give his 45 consumer brands the shelf space they deserve.

For example, a group of 20 marketing types observed people munching Orville Redenbacher in their natural habitats for nine months and came back from the field with the insight that popcorn is a "facilitator of interaction." A resulting TV and online campaign expounds on the tagline, "Spending time together: That's the power of Orville Redenbacher's." Researchers also "discovered" that shoppers who buy popcorn also gravitate toward the Coke aisle. The result: in-store displays that pull in business from different aisles.

But ConAgra occasionally "sends a message that borders on cognitive dissonance," Coster writes, citing a campaign for Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers in which real estate heiress Ivanka Trump blogged about saving money on lunch. "A little unconvincingly," opines Coster.

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