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GE Exploring 'Super Powers' Angle on Genetically Modified Food
Newsblusters staff report
March 30, 2001 2:15pm Est By: Stephen A. Tyre
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Amidst controversy surrounding GE Monsanto products, their marketing team aims to try a novel approach.
Shortly after attention was brought to the growing concerns that GM foods (Genetically Modified food/organisms) might pose a controversy in the market place, the GE Monsanto marketing team switched into high gear. Last June's favorable Supreme Court ruling for GE Monsanto in 'Monsanto Company v. Geertson Seed Farms' cultivated a great deal of media attention, resulting in widespread opinion for and against the company and the products themselves.
In St. Louis, MO, Monsanto's base of operations, Albert Willenhall, head of marketing and outreach operations for the last 3 years, challenged his team to create an innovative solution, a way to take the newfound attention and turn it into a positive return for the company.
On the phone with Willenhall, he explained that there were some fitful starts;
"Well, the first Monday we assembled after finding out how widespread this new attention to our exceptional products was seemed heady... almost overwhelming. We knew we had a great opportunity here, and we'd be remiss if we let it pass through our grasp."
Willenhall went on to explain;
"After morning jumping-jacks, we poured the coffee and tossed ideas around. The notion of calling it a 'Super Food' seemed pretty obvious after Jeff (R. Etcher) mentioned it. It had all the earmarks of a good campaign. We decided on a new 'Super Food' cereal with the tag 'Genetically Enriched' which, as you know, our foods are."
Willenhall then explained that they were still 'hammering out' a mascot for the cereal when word came down from acquisitions that production wasn't on the horizon. As he put it;
"GE can create new life, sway world politics, but when it comes to making cereal it's more than a 'snap' of the fingers. I guess even God can't do everything."
Willenhall assured me that the cereal, the name of which he would not disclose, would be available by mid-summer.
Willenhall, explaining the generational fascination with mutants and super-heros, said the marketing would play-up the 'superior mutant powers' of the produce used in the cereal.
"Kids, and even adults these days want something more special in their lives. If they can have a super-power cereal, I think we should make sure they know it.", Willenhall said.
I asked Willenhall just what super-powers consumers might expect to acquire from the brand;
"(Chuckles) Well, I'm not a scientist, and I'm going to go on record to state that the super-power is in the food itself. But, I suppose the only way we'll know what kind of super-powers it can grant people is if plenty of people get enough of the cereal."
He further went on to describe some of the marketing. According to Willenhall, each of the GE crops would be represented by a super-hero plant. The rice cereal with a golden 'rice' hero, the same with corn, soy, and yes... alfalfa. According to Willenhall, a team of eager young candidates is both the test market and focus
group for the campaign. When I asked about the results so far, he replied;
"No super-powers yet."
-S. A. Tyre
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