Steve Bryant, president of Publicis Consultants, is a prominent food marketer best know for bringing soy from geek to chic. We sat down with Steve for a freewheeling discussion of the growing "lifestyles of health and sustainability" (LOHAS) market, the rise of the veggieburger, and what you can learn from Jared, the weight-watching pitchman for Subway.

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SLM: In your 20 years managing PR campaigns in the food and health sectors you've seen some seismic shifts in thinking, from the mainstreaming of soy products to "eating locally." What have been some of the biggest changes you've seen in peoples' awareness of the relationship between what's on their plate, where it comes from, and how it's made? How does this affect a company's approach to marketing their products?

Steve: Its a complicated picture. There is an emerging American food preparation culture of some sophistication, an interest in local cultivation, and increasingly global tastes, yet most consumers are further than ever from the farm. Many children are literally repulsed to see food pulled from the ground. And food dangers are widely reported with great alarm. Its a confusing environment for marketers.

Some trends we see emerging from this melange is an interest in simple, quality ingredients, curiosity about a foods origin and story, and perhaps the greatest-ever interest in exploring new food flavors and varieties. Then, theres a whole family of organic distinctions are will increasingly take into account non-taste, non-nutritive factors like the environmental impact of different food choices.

SLM: We're all pretty familiar with "Jared," the Subway spokesman who lost a significant amount of weight by, as the company says, "eating fresh" Subway sandwiches. Fast food restaurants have been serving healthier options for some time, but none have built their core marketing strategy around promoting healthy eating the way Subway has. Was your client a little tentative at first about pursuing this novel strategy? Isn't fast food , as opposed to slow food , supposed to be a little bad for you?

Steve: In fact, the explosive success of Jared was driven largely by the shocking paradox that fast food could actually be good for you , even for your waistline. No one though it truly possible but the authenticity of Jareds story , and the authentic way we told it , persuaded consumers that healthy eating was attainable in a real world. (Its the same phenomenon were now seeing with dark chocolate.)

Subway was enthusiastic about telling the Jared story but they were startled by how big it turned out to be. We broke the story through national publicity. Jared , who we all know by one name , had big interviews with all of the one-name media personalities , Oprah, Katie, Rosie. The resulting hysteria led Subway to take the first Jared TV spot national, whereas it had initially been committed only to the Chicago market as a test.

As you can tell from the subsequent history of Subway TV commercials, Jared has remained a centerpiece of their marketing, but that health message has played alongside other creative highlighting new products with principally a taste, rather than nutrition, appeal.

Whats the lesson for green marketing? We will succeed best when we successfully position green choices as attainable, affordable and sustainable. Thats not to say we should only promote easy solutions, but that we should surprise consumers who are primed for change but may find significant behavioral changes or financial choices daunting.

SLM: Speaking of fast food, the veggie burger has become a mainstream, even trendy option these days , thanks in no small part to your PR efforts. How did you go about promoting the veggie burger in a country whose devotion to the good ol' fashioned hamburger or hot dog is right up there with apple pie?

Steve: Although the founder of Gardenburger was a committed vegetarian, it was the decade-long low-fat craze that created the market conditions for the success of veggie burgers. The Big Mac was at the time the icon for fat bombs in our diet, and hamburgers are a high-frequency purchase. So, even though consumer diets tend to change glacially, switching out beef to soy or veggie burgers was manageable. Consumers could win big in fat savings without a big taste sacrifice, or behavioral change.

Gardenburger was also a spunky little company that could, and that attracted a lot of interest and trial. This factor was evident when the company advertised on the last episode of the Seinfeld show, which was characterized as the Womens Super Bowl. We actually reached more consumers with publicity about the audacity of this bid to mainstream the brand, than we did through the commercial itself.
Likewise, for green solutions, consumers need to be legitimately persuaded that small or simple steps have the potential to yield big benefits over time. We all love a bargain. Its more sustainable that self-sacrifice.

SLM: Educating consumers about the complex relationship between environmental sustainability, food production and distribution, and the food they buy at the grocery store is a tremendously daunting task, especially if you've got only a few seconds to get your message across. What's your advice for companies seeking to capitalize on consumers' growing interest in a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle? How do you break through on such a big issue with so little time to catch consumers' attention?

Steve: In my view, there are two key strategies, which I would call risk avoidance and benefits bundling.

As The Hartman Group has demonstrated, the boom in organic food was not driven by our concerns about nurturing Mother Nature so much as by our personal fears that conventional foods could be undermining our health. So we need to find the personal risk in our green marketing messages. In some cases, like switching to more efficient air conditioning systems, that will be financial risks. In others, perhaps its the personal risk of unsafe cleaning products that are also bad for the environment. The global risk is undoubtedly an emotional touchpoint, but the personal risk will in many cases be the clincher that changes behavior.

Benefits bundling is the other potential strategy. For example, when it comes to food, most consumer choices are driven by taste benefits. So if we want to sell them on more environmentally sound foods, we will do best by suggesting or proving that those foods also taste better. The popularity of the Local Food movement is proof of this principle. Local foods require less fuel for transportation and they are delivered fresher. So the green benefit is a do good but its probably the feel good of better taste that will keep consumers buying local , even if that means higher prices.

SLM: What can attendees at this year's Sustainable Brands '07 conference expect to learn about food, nutrition, and healthcare marketing?

Steve: Green marketing opportunities are obvious in some categories, like reducing fuel consumption. In others, consumers will have to connect the dots. Food is one of the later. At the conference, I want to show how we have gone about looking at green marketing opportunities in the food industry. I hope that it will inspire others whose category opportunities are less obvious but real nonetheless.