Media Planning

Follow-Up on Gardenburger

Marketing experts doubt the strategy will work. “These people are looking for a broad-based mind-set change with a 30-second commercial,” says Mohan Sawhney, a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. “TV is a lousy medium to do that,: he adds.

As rough cuts of the commercials flicker across a TV screen, Mr. Hubbard sinks lower and lower in his chair. He fidgets, chuckles nervously, and ends up holding his head in his hands. The commercials, the ad executives say, are supposed to poke mild fun at veggie burgers while getting across the message that if viewers try them, they’ll like them.

As the pencil test, so called because the graphics will be smoothed out in the final versions, comes to an end, Mr. Hubbard wears a slightly stricken look. Mr. Dietz sits silently, staring straight ahead. “I’m a little … I’m not nervous,” says Mr. Hubbard.

One way or the other, one of these three commercials will be broadcast on Seinfeld. The campaign has gobbled nearly all the company’s cash, and there isn’t enough left to redo anything. “The toothpaste,” Mr. Hubbard says, “is out of the tube.”

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