The document discusses Hidden Valley's Lunch Break for Kids Fundraiser campaign which aimed to get kids to eat more vegetables by using ranch dressing and advocate for family meals. The campaign established credibility through partnerships with celebrity chefs and media events. However, it is noted that the campaign could have done more to directly appeal to kids and promote healthier low-fat ranch options. Suggestions include associating ranch with children's shows and hosting fundraisers during times more relevant to kids.

1. Case Study Analysis Research Paper Daniel Garcia
Hidden Valley Lunch Break for Kids Fundraisers
White Hat
Steve Henson and his wife Gayle bought land in Santa Barbara, CA in 1954
and Hidden Valley Guest Ranch was born. Guests would enjoy the great outdoors
during the day and home-cooked meals by night. They would love the homemade
buttermilk salad dressing and request for jars to take home to their families. Today,
the ranch dressing is sold to more than 30 countries around the world and found in
thousands of restaurants.
Many families today are too busy with hectic activities; long work hours,
stressful commutes, and the challenge of preparing meals. Hidden Valley has been
executing programs that encourage kids to use ranch with their vegetables for the
past seven years. The opportunity to launch Hidden Valley Lunch Break for Kids
Fundraiser was established to advance its key message towards mealtime and help
bring families together to the dinner table.
The research shows that eating dinner, as a family will increase the intake of
fruits and vegetables, which will provide a variety of nutrients. Hidden Valley’s
Lunch Break for Kids fundraiser partnered with the American Culinary Foundation
(ACF) to establish credibility to reach a broader audience with a broader message.
““Our continued partnership with Hidden Valley has allowed us to expand
the mission of the Chef & Child Foundation by helping us raise awareness and funds
to educate children and families in understanding proper nutrition,” said Micheal
Ty, ACF National President.
Since mothers are the target audience for the Lunch Break for kids
Fundraisers, the program was intended to showcase Hidden Valley as an advocate
for nutrition education and encourage moms to consider ranch dressing as a helping
hand to bring the families together for mealtimes. In 2012, more than one third of
children and adolescents were considered overweight or obese, according to the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Childhood obesity has more than
doubled in children the last 30 years.
“Families who eat dinner together as a family tend to have a higher rate of
eating the recommended intake of fruit and vegetables,” (“The Importance of Family
Dinners.”) Studies show that 71 percent of children get information about how to
eat healthy from their mother.
Red Hat
The notion of Hidden Valley Lunch Break for Kids Fundraiser is to get kids to
eat more vegetables with ranch while advocating for nutrition education. Still one
could argue the health benefits of the ranch itself. Each serving of Hidden Valley
Ranch dressing contains 14 grams of total fat, which is about 22 percent of the
recommended maximum intake for fat based on the 2,000 calories a day diet.

2. Case Study Analysis Research Paper Daniel Garcia
I’m a fan of ranch dressing, but I feel like I dip all my vegetables in the
dressing to mask the taste. I wonder if I’m preventing myself from developing a zest
for vegetables. However, others may argue that it is a good vehicle to consume
vegetables so long as you can control the portions.
Yellow Hat
A successful feature of the Hidden Valley Lunch Break for Kids Fundraiser
was establishing credibility in many different ways. They enlisted celebrity chef;
opinion leader, dad and Food Network star Jamie Deen as their national
spokesperson. By enlisting Deen their credibility covered both the culinary and the
parent spaces. They also teamed up with the American Culinary Foundation, which
would in return allowed them to reach a broader audience and spread the message
of eating healthier.
Lunch Break for Kids fundraisers were held across the country the week of
Oct. 15-19, in conjunction with AFC’s Chef and Child Foundation for the National
Childhood Nutrition day on Oct.16. Other famous chefs around the country served as
secondary spokespeople, who also helped reinforce the Hidden Valley food tie after
joining the fundraiser. The chefs were located in key cities such as Dallas, Los
Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco. This group of chefs further reinforced
the fundraisers Hidden Valley’s credibility by hosting the Lunch Break for Kids
fundraiser in their restaurants.
Hidden Valley did a great job using controlled media tactics by distributing a
photo of Jaime Deen from a photo shoot at the launch of the Lunch Break for Kids
fundraiser week which was picked up by Yahoo! News. They also released a B-roll
video filled with nonverbal cues showing families eating simple foods together
around the table and dipping their veggies in ranch.
Since their target audience consisted of mothers, Hidden Valley partnered
with Federated Media to involve food and mom bloggers as reliable opinions on the
topic of bringing families together with simple food and the great taste of Hidden
Valley.
“Hidden Valley is an ingredient I used for years to get my family crunching on
veggies, especially during that stressful time during after school and bedtime,” said
Sara Evans, country music star, blogger and mother of seven kids.
The program can be considered smart and efficient for targeting moms who
would want to participate in teaching kids how they can eat more nutritious. They
released a campaign targeted to busy working moms, called “Twist on Tonight.”
The campaign generated 230,000 branded impressions when users shared
the uncontrolled multimedia content on Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
The company took this opportunity to leverage consumer behavior via mobile to
deliver more engaging content such as images and downloadable videos via RMM.
With RMM customers are able to access the information directly threw a text
message, download, and can share the content with one click proved to be
successful in the campaign.
Hidden Valley’s main website is well updated, informative, easy to maneuver
and explore. They are aware football season has started and offer a variety of

3. Case Study Analysis Research Paper Daniel Garcia
recipes for dips as well as other snack products to make with Hidden Valley. They
have easy access to connect the links to all of their social media. The only thing I was
unable to locate was the slogan.
Jaime Deen showed another form of controlled media used by Hidden Valley
to reinforce the brand message with top media outlets in an exclusive event. Deen
hosted an intimate lunch with editors from PARADE and Shape magazine. The
editors were given an opportunity for a one-on-one interview with Deen regarding
tips on how to bring families together and his involvement with Hidden Valley and
the LBFK program.
Once again Hidden Valley certified their brand with credibility by having a
registered dietitian Jodie Shield, conduct “taster studies” tests with attendees. She
provided credibility for nutrition and branded coverage for “How to Get Kids to Eat
Veggies” on Parents.com.
Black Hat
The campaign did really well, establishing credibility through the use of their
celebrities, chefs and media coverage. However, their efforts to get kids to eat more
fruits and vegetables with the Lunch Break for Kids Fundraiser didn’t seem to focus
enough on kids. The campaign emphasized the idea of family coming together and
bonding during mealtimes, but lacked the innovative ideas that would motivate the
kids to willingly want to eat vegetables.
I feel like the campaign failed to appeal to the kids and focused most of their
attention on establishing credibility. Original Hidden Valley ranch isn’t the
healthiest choice when referring to nutritious meal choice, so I would of proposed
suggesting the low-fat ranch as an alternative.
The campaign media coverage was excellent, but the social media could have
been better for Hidden Valley and the Lunch Break for Kids fundraiser. Hidden
Valley’s Facebook page has 283,280 likes but there is little activity from followers.
From the 10 most recent posts an average of only 46 followers shared a post on
their timeline.
I understand reasoning for choosing to promote the fundraiser the week of
Childhood Nutrition Day but it also happens to be in the month of Halloween and
children’s focus is on candy. My suggestion would be to execute the fundraiser
sometime in the spring.
Hidden Valley’s slogan is “The way ranch is supposed to taste,” but I was
unable to see that on their website or any of their social media outlets. I would have
liked to see the slogan somewhere on their website.
Green Hat
In order to encourage healthy eating habits to the dinner table kids have to
be willing to eat their vegetables rather than force it on their dinner plates. One
suggestion would be to associate Hidden Valley ranch with “Veggie Tales,” a
children’s cartoon of walking talking vegetable characters. By continually promoting

4. Case Study Analysis Research Paper Daniel Garcia
their message kids will be drawn to the cartoon visuals and might be more open to
the idea of eating their vegetables.
Instead of having the fundraiser in between the month of October it would be
better to host it during National Nutrition Month of March. Springtime would be a
more appropriate time because it allows vegetables like carrots to fit with the Easter
holiday theme and it will have more kids participate in eating healthier on their
own.
Blue Hat
In summary, the Hidden Valley saw an opportunity to evolve their previous
idea of getting kids to love their veggies and bring families together at the dinner
table. The Lunch Break for Kids program used celebrity chefs, reached out to
blogger moms and hosted several events as a form to establish source credibility.
They sent out two forms of controlled media and one contained nonverbal
cues, which were well distributed and effective. They covered the media well with
special events, providing parents with hints on how to eat healthier and share a
mealtime as a family.
The Valley Lunch Break for Kids proved successful, but I feel like they failed
to make vegetables appeal to the kids. If they would consider associating themselves
with a popular cartoon character and add them on the ranch dip cups I think it will
appeal to kids and have them reach for vegetables on their own. Overall, this
fundraiser was well perceived because they took the love of vegetable campaign and
expressed the importance of bringing families together.

5. Case Study Analysis Research Paper Daniel Garcia
Works Cited
 Saettler, Michelle. "Hidden Valley's 'Twist on Tonight' Campaign Goes Viral on
Social." Mobile Commerce Daily RSS. 10 July 2014
 "Press Release." Http://www.acfchefs.org. American Culinary Federation, 11 Oct.
2012.
 "Lunch Break for Schools." Lunch Break for Schools. Windy City Live, 21 Feb. 2012
 Weinstein, Miriam. "About the Power of Family Meals." The Power of Family
Meals. The Power of Family Meals. Web.
<http://poweroffamilymeals.com/resources/about>.
 "Home." Hidden Valley. Web. 11 Sept. 2014. <https://www.hiddenvalley.com/>.
 "Hidden Valley Lunch Break for Kids Fundraisers." N.p., PRSA, 1 Jan. 2014. Web.
 Facebook. Web. <https://www.facebook.com/hiddenvalley>.
 Twitter. Web. <https://twitter.com/HVRanch>.
 Pinterest. Web. http://www.pinterest.com/hvranch/
 BALTAZAR, AMANDA. "Schooled in Health." FSR Magazine. 1 Feb. 2012. Web.