Capri Sun created a fake adult romance to get a low sugar message to parents

How does a kid-centric product get a message across to parents and bypass its core audience at the same time? Capri Sun is having a try, by hiding it something that all kids hate: cringeworthy romance. The Kraft Heinz brand recently reduced the total and added sugars across its entire original juice drink portfolio by an average of 40%. But it wants to promote that fact to parents, rather than freaking out their kids. So, in a campaign by Goodby Silverstein & Partners, it created an "ad" for a cheesy adult romance novel, starring a character called "Juicio" (think Fabio, from the 2010s Old Spice campaign). He's designed to get kids scrolling away, but parents taking a closer look, before he delivers his message about Capri Sun reducing its sugar. The video ends with the message "your kids will never know." A spot directed by the Giraffe Sisters is running on social media platforms including on key "BookTok" accounts, and the campaign also includes an actual audiobook, available on Audible, Spotify and Apple. The minute long chapters tell the story of "a sweet mother" named Melissa and the man "who shares with her a scandalous secret that her kids can never discover." Capri Sun is not the first brand to go down the adult romance route: KFC did it in 2017 with a campaign in which Colonel Sanders played the starring role in a bodice ripper. But the campaign fits with the brand's history of finding ways to target both kids and their parents; a 2020 campaign by Mischief pranked kids by giving them pouches of water, instead of Capri Sun.

Capri Sun created a fake adult romance to get a low sugar message to parents

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