Part of a Complete Breakfast

You know what the most amazing health food is? Chocolate sauce mixed with nuts. You should give it to your kids. For breakfast.

Yup.

According to the sample of Nutella that I received in the mail this week, Nutella is all about nutritious breakfasts. The little brochure that came with the sample even says "Learn more about nutritious breakfasts at www.nutella.ca."

Unfortunately, when I go to the Web site there's not really any information about nutritious breakfasts. They use the tagline "Spread some energy", which is kind of related, I guess, but not exactly the same thing. There's one page of nutritional information about the product, but that's hardly teaching me about nutritious breakfasts either.

It doesn't even have that silly "Part of this complete breakfast" thing that you see in cereal commercials (where the bowl of cereal is surrounded by about fourteen bananas, six oranges, a bale of hay, a gallon of apple juice, a pair of running shoes, a set of weights, and a personal trainer).

Based on the brochure and the Web site, here's the entirety of what I know about the product's nutritional features and benefits:
1. It uses all natural ingredients.
2. It has no preservatives
3. It has no artificial colours
4. It is a source of vitamin E.

Wow! It's practically a green salad with low-fat dressing!

Okay, sacrasm off.

Is it just me, or is this a stretch for the brand?
I have to wonder why they've chosen to position this product with the term "nutrition".
I can understand that they don't want to be associated with ideas like "give your kids candy for breakfast", and probably don't want to be limited to being seen as an "adult" product. But... there's a big leap from "this product is actually not that bad for you" to "this product is great for you!".

The "spread some energy" slogan seems like a much better fit, so I wonder why "energy" isn't their driving message. I can also see some value in an approach like "Even fussy eaters love Nutella for breakfast", since I'm sure a lot of parents have trouble getting kids to eat a proper meal in the morning. So it's not like the product has nothing going for it and has to focus on nutrition. The quality of ingredients needs to demoted to a secondary message.

Maybe I'm totally wrong, but is anybody* really buying the idea that a chocolate spread is a generally healthy choice for kids? To me, all they're doing is reminding me that this is the same stuff that Ferrero Rochers are made from.






(* or, at least, anybody who can afford this premium product? I doubt that the target market is the "bag of Doritos for breakfast while watching wrestling in a trailer down by the river" audience)