• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, February 9, 2015

Hillshire Farm Naturals, a line launched last August, is rolling out a national campaign offering a money-back guarantee.

The "Love It or We'll Eat It" campaign, from Y&R New York, challenges consumers to buy and taste the new lunch meat and visit a campaign Web site, where they can choose from two options, through April 30.

When consumers indicate that they're satisfied with the product by choosing "Love It" — and providing date of birth, as well as email address — Hillshire Farm will donate 10 cents (the equivalent of one meal) to the Feeding American network of food banks, up to a maximum of $50,000 in donations. 

Consumers who aren't satisfied can select "We'll Eat It," and then opt either to request a refund check for up to $6 (which requires mailing in a receipt for an eight-ounce package of the product), or opt to have their refunds donated to Feeding America.

This marks the first money-back guarantee offer not only for Hillshire Farm, but for the lunch meat category as a whole, according to Jeff Caswell, VP president and general manager for the brand, which is owned by Tyson Foods.

The Naturals line, which contains no artificial ingredients, preservatives or "added nitrites/nitrates," is designed to leverage category trends.

While the lunch meat category overall has been basically flat, at about $6.4 billion, premium and super-premium varieties have seen sales increase by more than 12% in the last three years. In fact, if that trend continues, the more expensive varieties will overtake the long-dominant value/mainstream varieties, reports Hillshire Farm.

"Natural" claims tend to support higher pricing, whatever the category.

However, consumers tend to have negative preconceptions about how natural lunchmeat products will taste. 

The money-back guarantee is, of course, intended to take on that preconception by compellingly conveying the brand's confidence that consumers will "love" the taste of Hillshire Farm Naturals. In recent blind taste tests, 79% of consumers have said that the taste of these new products has exceeded their expectations, Caswell tells Marketing Daily. 

The guarantee campaign includes print and online advertising in Food Network, Pandora, Yahoo, MSN and Time Inc. and Meredith properties, among others, as well as promotion in Hillshire Farm's Web site and its Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest channels.

Up to this point, the line, which was launched in time for the 2014 back-to-school season, has been supported by shopper marketing and in-store campaigns, says Caswell. 

The Naturals campaign, while separate, is consistent in look and tone with the current advertising for the overall brand, which stresses the quality and "craftsmanship" of its products, he notes.