Kerry Foods launches Cheestring ad push to ‘rightly articulate’ real cheese claim

The dairy maker hopes the Fallon-created campaign will recapture the “child-centric” tone of its earlier ads after admitting it needs to deliver more variety in a “static” cheese snacking market. Children will play a central role in the upcoming advert for the first time in 10 years to reflect the tonal shift and introduce its new “Real Cheese Made Fun” strapline.

The advert launches on Thursday (20 March) and opens on the brand’s “Mr Cheese” mascot singing with children in a woodland setting. At the end of the song the animated character tries to assemble the children by blowing into a conch shell as if it were a trumpet, only for them to giggle when a raspberry sound is made instead. The ad ends on a shot of the product and a glass of milk to indicate there is a full glass in every Cheestring.

Alison Lees, marketing manager for kids dairy snacking at Kerry Foods, says the sight of children engaging with the product in the advert combined with the brand’s new strapline should “righty articulate” it is made from real cheese. Previous efforts have attempted to alleviate any nutritional concerns but parents are still questioning the amount of additives contained in the product, she says.

Lees adds: “We’ve tried to wrap health up in an emotionally rich territory for mums rather than opting for the more functional approach.

“We’ve talked about the calcium in Cheestrings through our marketing in the past but don’t feel we need to do that now. Mums are more knowledgeable about what they feed their kids and consequently understand that cheese is an important part of their diet because it contains calcium.”

The campaign also includes an on-pack promotion offering kids free collectable cards. Each card challenges a child to complete a “brave” challenge such as getting a ball and playing lunch box bowling or leaping over a puddle. Kids can also use codes on the cards to unlock  videos of “Mr Cheese” singing online. It builds on the Cheestring “Brave Bones Club”, an online kids club that launched in December.

The brand’s focus on active play stems from research Kerry Foods conducted last year that revealed it could tie kids’ love of the outdoors to cheese’s role in healthy bone development. The dairy business believes the health claim is enough to force its way into lunchboxes after acknowledging the Government’s plan to offer free lunches to all Reception, Year One and Year Two children in state-funded schools from September could stunt demand.

Lees adds: “It’s a challenging market where we constantly need to be brining new kids into the brand. The cheese snacking market as whole is static so we need to find new ways to get consumers excited about cheese snacks.”