Serving Up a Working Lunch

(From time to time I like to use this space to brag about Marketing with Meaning that we launch for our clients. Today is a huge day for our agency, as we launch the Working Lunch, a live entertainment program that’s a cross between The Office and Whose Line Is It Anyway?  I asked Marc Connor, one of our star strategic planners and someone who was integral to this idea, to guest write this entry.)

Bob’s out; I’m in… at least for today. I recently joined Bridge Worldwide, and one of the most important factors in my decision was the shared vision for using marketing, in and of itself, to bring value to consumers’ lives. I carry this thought with me on every project on which I am engaged. In this competitive and fast-changing world, it is increasingly important to differentiate our brands with not just messages…but with meaning.

This week we launched the Working Lunch-another exciting and meaningful marketing program for one of our clients, the Healthy Choice brand of ConAgra Foods. ConAgra Foods has launched a new innovation in healthy, great-tasting, shelf-stable meals with Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers, and they are appealing to a broader and younger audience than the brand has sought in its history. The opportunity was to create an experience that introduced the brand and this unique product in a meaningful way to a new segment of consumers.

The insight that drove the development of the Working Lunch was that lunchtime has become the new prime time, particularly for reaching the new, gainfully employed, “distractainment”-seeking consumer. First, we learned that 60 percent of office workers regularly eat lunch at their desks. They are often multitasking at their desk through the lunch hour, working, shopping, surfing, and connecting with others. Therefore, the options are many for this audience, and as a content provider one must provide bite-sized, snackable options to get their attention. People wander in and out of the short-attention-span theater; you have to grab them quickly but make it easy for them to engage or disengage at will.

And so we created the Working Lunch, the world’s first live sketch-comedy programming delivered via the Web and powered by the audience. With the Working Lunch we’re engaging our audience at the greatest moment of receptivity, second only to being at shelf. As they eat their lunch and graze for engaging content during the few minutes of break they get at their desk, they will enjoy unpredictable live comedy and have the opportunity to influence it directly and almost instantaneously, through polls and by proposing meeting agenda topics. The world of DeLaney, Delaney, & Delaney, the inept but always humorously optimistic company whose actual business is always delightfully ambiguous, is at the center of the sketch comedy concept. The Working Lunch was developed with MSN and will be aired live for two weeks in November and another two weeks in January. We’re extending the experience by recording all the action and creating best-of clips that can be shared easily with MSN’s care package.

By positioning Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers as the sponsor for this entertaining concept, along with a generous dose of product placement throughout the show, we create a positive association and emotional involvement with the product. As the Working Lunch proves, meaningful marketing does not have to be serious to provide value. So join the fun; it’s sure to be one of the best working lunches you’ve ever experienced.

-Marc Connor, Director of Strategic Planning, Bridge Worldwide