Consumers Urged to Be Fruitful, but Can Sales Multiply?

Editors’ Note: This issue of In Advertising is coming to you today because of the Presidents’ Day holiday yesterday. Look for the newsletter next week on its regular day, Monday.

A new campaign urges consumers to be fruitful, but can sales multiply?

That is the multimillion-dollar question as Edible Arrangements International begins the first national television advertising for its gift products. The commercials, scheduled to begin on Sunday, are intended to complement print and Internet banner ads that have been running for the last couple of years.

The spots are created by Hot Dish Advertising, a Minneapolis agency that has also been producing the print ads for Edible Arrangements. The media part of the campaign is handled by MediaCom, part of the GroupM division of the WPP Group.

The commercials are intended to help establish Edible Arrangements as an alternative to florists, candy makers and other sources of gifts.

The company sells arrangements of freshly cut fruit, styled to resemble floral arrangements, which range in price from to 0. They are sold in stores, online (ediblearrangements.com) and through a toll-free telephone number (1-877-363-7848, with the final seven digits spelling out “Do Fruit”).

Fruit cut to look like floral bouquets? Not exactly “Hookers cut to look like movie stars,” to quote a line heard a lot in the film “L.A. Confidential,” but unusual nonetheless. Think of Carmen Miranda — the singer known as “The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat” — working as a florist, and you get the idea.

The target audience for the campaign is women, ages 25 to 54, in charge of the gift-giving for their families. The campaign uses an emotional appeal to convince them that a fruit gift from Edible Arrangements is as good as — if not better than — a traditional gift like a bouquet, a box of chocolates, a household gadget or other tchotchke.

“We’re not trying to overtly steal business away,” says Stephen Thomas, vice president for marketing at Edible Arrangements in Wallingford, Conn. “We think our product can stand on its own merits.”

“It’s freshly made, high quality,” he adds. “And you can eat it.”

The company has recently “done quite a bit of consumer research,” Mr. Thomas says, “and found our product enjoys favorable perceptions for quality, freshness and uniqueness.”

“We hear time and time again from consumers that it elicits a great emotional response from the recipient,” he adds, “and that’s important” because it validates to the gift-giver the choice of “something different” — i.e., Edible Arrangements.

Television is being added to the campaign, Mr. Thomas says, because the commercials can “visibly show the emotional reaction the recipients have.”

Also, TV is “an effective way to get broad reach” for the brand, he adds, “and build our awareness.”

The addition of television to the Edible Arrangements campaign — as the print and online ads continue — is indicative of how the traditional media can still retain their appeal to advertisers.

Even when the buzz on Madison Avenue is being generated by new approaches like viral videos, social networking Web sites and user-generated content, a medium that began to get the attention of consumers when Harry S. Truman was president remains attractive.

“Because it’s such a visual product, television makes sense” for Edible Arrangements, says Jennifer Campbell, a founder of Hot Dish Advertising who is a vice president at the agency.

Also, as the company’s store count increases, she adds, “it felt like the right time to debut television.” According to ediblearrangements.com, there are more than 650 franchised stores in the United States (including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico). Arrangements can be picked up or delivered from the local stores.

The commercial begins with the soothing voice of a female announcer. “I sent Julia an Edible Arrangements bouquet,” she says, as on camera an actress in a kitchen beams at her gift. “We’re best friends.”

(Translation: Don’t expect Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to be exchanging arrangements anytime soon.)

Cut to a couple with a fruit gift in front of them. “I had one delivered to my parents on their anniversary, because I was thinking of them,” the announcer says.

(Hmmmmm. What would she had sent them if she had not been thinking of them?)

The next scene depicts a child’s birthday party with a fruit gift front and center. Yes, the announcer sent him an Edible Arrangements gift, too.

“Edible Arrangements bouquets are gorgeous, made fresh and taste delicious,” the announcer declares. “So make any occasion special; ordering is easy.”

Okay, so no one will ever fete the campaign for its breakthrough creativity.

“The consumer just doesn’t understand yet the product exists,” Ms. Campbell says. “We had to start with the basics.”

“If we went too far on the unique side,” she adds, viewers “might not get what the product is.”

The “key benefit of all the advertising is to show the emotional benefit to the person purchasing it,” Ms. Campbell says.

“You feel good because the person who received it is happy to get it,” she adds. “They’ve never seen it before, and it looks fresh and wonderful.”

Ms. Campbell says she practices what she preaches, sending Edible Arrangements gifts “to my children’s day care and for birthdays.”

“And I send it to my husband for Valentine’s Day,” she adds. “He likes the chocolate-covered apples.”

Plans call for the commercial to run on cable networks watched by the target audience, which include E, Food Network, HGTV, Lifetime, Oxygen and SoapNet. The spot is also scheduled be seen during “Good Morning America” on ABC.

The media schedule also includes commercials during syndicated shows like “Friends,” “Two and a Half Men” and “Will & Grace.”

The print ads carry headlines like “This spring let your centerpiece blossom” and “Your co-workers deserve recognition. Chocolate-covered recognition.”

The print ads are planned to appear in seven magazines: Cooking Light, Food & Wine, Home, O: The Oprah Magazine, Redbook, Traditional Home and Woman’s Day. The banner ads will appear on the Web sites of many of those magazines along with sites like marieclaire.com.

The television campaign is arranged in flights, the industry term for concentrated bursts during the year. The first flight, which begins on Sunday, is planned to continue for four weeks.

The rest are to be determined, Mr. Thomas says, with the second flight “probably in early summer.”

Just in time for a July Fourth gift of red, white and blue berries.

•

If you like In Advertising, be sure to read the Advertising column that appears Monday through Friday in the Business Day section of The New York Times newspaper and on nytimes.com.