Elevating your product from features and benefits to a larger emotional takeaway is always smart, especially if you do it as thoughtfully as Stouffer's has with their Let's Fix Dinner campaign. After all, why sell noodles when you can sell nostalgia.

The "Let's Fix Dinner" microsite introduces the concept with compelling (and believable) copy:

Whatever happened to family dinner?

Though it's never been more difficult, it's also never been more important to make this time to connect. The benefits of family dinner are just so powerful.

At Stouffer's, we believe there's no better place for our families than the dining room table...and we want to help you get there.

The campaign consists of:

Print Ads, including one with my favorite headline: Are your kids more likely to talk if their mouths are full? Following copy reads: Studies show 72% of teens who ate often with their families said they would go to their parents if they had a problem. Ads also connect the act of eating en famille with lower rates of eating disorders in girls, lower rates of teen drinking and drug use, and increased marital happiness.

An Online Dinner Survey: 6 simple questions about your family's habits and how you compare to other families surveyed.

A Let's Fix Dinner Challenge: An invitation to challenge your own family to eat together more often. A sticky little app that lets you keep a daily meal log, download coupons, and enter a sweepstakes.

Blogger Roundtable: Stouffer's invited 15 influential bloggers and topical experts to start an ongoing conversation about dinner in America via their own blogs, all linkable from the Stouffer's Let's Fix Dinner site.

Family Webisodes: Reality-TV style vignettes of five families all aiming to increase their togetherness time.

Facebook Integration: The campaign not only lives on its Facebook Fan page, but wall postings are sprinkled throughout the microsite.

Twitter: Under the handle Letsfixdinner, Stouffer's is introducing their campaign to hundreds of hungry Tweeples.

Short of skywriting, Stouffer's has utilized every tool available to get the word out about this initiative -- smartly using both paid and unpaid media. It's perfectly timed for tough economic times when consumers are eating out less often. And as a Creative Director, I salute agency JWT New York for producing ads that have just the right homespun tone and visual appeal.

For nothing overlooked and everything prepared perfectly, this month's Warm Blanket Award can be found in your grocer's freezer: well done, Stouffer's.

Labels: dinnertime, Facebook, Mom Bloggers, mom marketing award

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.

Big news in the blogosphere. The Federal Trade Commission is considering adapting its guidelines to require bloggers to identify their sponsors. There's a worthwhile article arguing both sides of the issue in last week's U.S. News Weekly.

Essentially the folks in support of FTC watchdogs argue three things:

1). Social media creates new forms of public communication that didn't exist a decade ago and that, unlike other forms of advertising, let marketers advertise covertly.

2). Word-of-mouth advertising is only effective if it's authentic and that consumers deserve to know the motivation behind an endorsement.

3). Self-regulation and policing are not viable solutions.

On the other side of the fence, folks against FTC regulations argue:

1). The industry-standard guidelines provided since 2005 by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association for ethical online disclosure and transparency are adequate.

2). Bloggers who deceive online readers are already subject to the worst punishment of all: online vilification of their brands that spreads like wildfire.

3). Voluntary relationship disclosure will make legal restrictions unnecessary in the future.

Who is right?

Personally, I lean in favor of the new regulations. This is an unpopular position for someone in the ad business, I realize. Yet the personal nature of blogs insinuate an authenticity that doesn't always exist.

To put it another way, ads look like ads, by virtue of their placement in mainstream media, slick production, recognizable spokespeople, stated call-to-action, etc. Blogs are a different animal entirely, already dipping below the radar of consumers by their first-person voice and anecdotal style. Bloggers and copywriters both use words to describe products or services. Both get paid to do so (at least the bloggers relevant to this issue). Why should the blogger be able to pocket money for an endorsement without disclosing the arrangement?

Let me be clear about one final point.

I don't think these disclosures will kill the phenomenal WOM enjoyed by many brands via their relationships with bloggers.

Rather, I think the really talented bloggers -- those who earn the trust of their readers through well-crafted postings and a demonstration of care for one's followers -- will continue to help build brands they endorse.

That's my opinion. What's yours?

Labels: Blogging regulations, Email marketing to moms, FTC, Mom Bloggers, WOMA

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.

A recent article in Advertising Age magazine entitled Inside the Mommy Blogger Business is making the rounds on the Internet. No fewer than three colleagues sent it to me independently, leading me to believe I should probably write about it.

But what can I say about this topic that is:

a). news to you and

b). defendable?

After all, the stats quoted in the article aren't really news. 8 million women publish blogs, at least 3.2 million of them who are moms. Since mothers account for $2.1 trillion in spending each year -- and the fact thay they put enormous confidence in the opinions of other moms -- blogs can be a great boost for companies that fall in favor with top bloggers.

What should these mind-blowing stats and game-changing trends mean to you? Simply put: you've got to have at least one toe in the pool. You needn't cannon ball in, but drop your towel and get ready to take a dip.

In situations like this, it sometimes pays to switch into "McDonald's" marketing brain (that is, to build your store next to a McDonald's, which has spent millions researching location and profitability). So what are the big players in the space doing? According to Ad Age, companies like Walmart and BabyCenter are incorporating mom blogger features into their sites to bring useful content to their customers and to stay close to the source of ideas, trends, and the general pulse of moms. I think these "affinity" features are a smart way to acknowledge bloggers as having a voice worth hearing and to develop a positive two-way dialogue with the blog followers.

A more immediate and direct way to connect with mom bloggers is through product sampling. I just received an email invitation to sponsor a MomSelect "Swag Suite" at the annual BlogHer Conference in July. $750 buys you the opportunity to place 100 products in front of influential moms and their keyboards. You don't know what (if anything) they might write about your product, but you are on their radar. This arrangement intrigues me because it sidesteps the conflict-of-interest concern that paid bloggers encounter. Sure, it's free stuff, but the blogger has no pressure to write anything -- let alone anything favorable -- about the products.

And if you're really new to the idea of mom bloggers, spend a little time getting up to speed. Make just one visit to the newly launched site Moms Who Blog and you'll see a group of women -- all with a blogging shingle in cyberspace -- no two of them exactly alike. Which ones might have a flair and a following that align with your brand?

Lastly, whatever your current Mom Blogger I.Q., consider picking up a copy of the new book Mom 3.0: Marketing WITH Today's Moms by Leveraging New Media & Technology. This latest title comes from Maria T. Bailey, the powerhouse behind 2005's popular book Trillion-Dollar Moms.

No time to read? Stay tuned to Maternal Journal. I'm reading Mom 3.0 now and will write a synopsis in the coming weeks.

Labels: Advertising Age, BabyCenter, Mom Bloggers, Walmart

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.