AdMiration feature: Nature Valley's "Jealousy"

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to Nature Valley's "Jealousy" ad, part of the brand’s new “We Make Nature Delicious" campaign, which showcases their portfolio in a fresh new way.

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens to a family of four taking a break from their hike in the woods and sitting on a log. As they each take a seat, the mom hands out some Nature Valley Crunchy Oats n’ Honey granola bars, complete with a close-up “snap!” of one of the bars crisply breaking in half. At this, a possum swings down from a tree branch, with an “Oooh!” followed by other woodland creatures like a brown bear, fox and raccoon. As the mom savors her bar, the raccoon inches closer, making puppy dog eyes. 

While the family finds the raccoon adorable, the mom says, “This isn’t for you, little guy.” To which the raccoon, to their surprise, straightens up and responds in a serious tone, “Okay, okay! What if I did a little dance?” 

The raccoon proceeds to make musical sounds as he starts wiggling around in dance as the family stares, now surrounded by many more woodland critters. 

The ad closes with a shot of several Nature Valley granola bar boxes on a log, with the words and voiceover “Nature Valley, we make nature delicious” as the raccoon’s hand is seen reaching from the side.

3 facts

• This was a strong ad from Nature Valley, landing in the top 20% of US ads for ability to drive short-term sales (Sales Impact: 82) and brand equity over the long term (Brand Impact: 80).

• The ad resonates well among all audiences, but even more so with older audiences, who were more likely to recognize and remember the Nature Valley brand (Unaided Brand Recall: 86% vs. 80%) as well as think that the ad communicates positive category attributes for the brand, such as that it is great tasting (64%), for everyone (62%), is a healthy option (57%) and satisfying (53%). 

• This is a distinctive ad (Distinctiveness: 4.1 vs. 3.7 norm) that sets the brand apart from others in the category (Brand Distinctiveness 3.9 vs. 3.7 norm). Audiences enjoy the ad (Enjoyment: 4.2 vs. 3.9 norm) and after watching it, they feel good about the Nature Valley brand (Brand Appeal: 4.2 vs. 3.9 norm). 

2 learnings

• The use of animals is a great way of creating an emotional connection with people. And when animals are intuitive for the brand and category and at the heart of the storyline with relevance to the brand, they are a great asset. In this case it's not just animals — it’s also the storyline, how the family and animals interact, the empathy and humor that makes the ad truly work. 

• The combination of love and laughter is a consistent driver of memorable advertising — and Nature Valley does a wonderful job at blending the two in this spot. In fact, the ad sits in the sweet spot of being loved (35% vs. 27% norm) and making people laugh (19% vs. 7% norm). Because of this, the ad resonates very strongly among all audiences (Relevance: 3.9 vs. 3.7 norm) and makes them feel something while watching it (Overall Emotion: 66 vs. 57 norm), with some sharing: "The funny wildlife, the raccoon is my favorite. I love the sound the fox made when poking his head out of the hole.” "I like everything about the ad. Especially all the animals that are in the woods in the raccoon talking and dancing." and "I liked the family enjoying hiking together in the woods. I liked the cute animals noticing the granola bars. I especially liked the raccoon who was pleading for a bar."

1 reflection

Are you focusing on using or building the right brand assets to grow your brand for the long term? Brand characters have great potential and ones like these can offer an abundance of fresh, fun stories while auto triggering the brand. Nature Valley’s new animals are not DBAs yet, but they could be with time and consistent use.

While the introduction of the animal puppets was very new for Nature Valley, the whole story and the reason for the animal's presence is related to the brand. The addition of the animals simply add to their typical advertising and bring in a layer of distinctiveness. 

Characters and animals can become the best distinctive brand assets (DBAs) and these certainly have potential to do so as they are relevant to the product, bring character, could easily be used to trigger the brand and have the fantastic ability to create fresh yet consistent stories over time.

The brand’s new campaign, “We Make Nature Delicious” was ​created by The Martin Agency to present Nature Valley’s signature outdoorsy identity grounded in nature and real ingredients and showcase their entire range of products in a more humorous, relatable way.

Ray Joncas, Vice President and Business Unit Director for bars at General Mills, shares: “When people think of Nature Valley, they immediately think of our iconic Crunchy Bar. Our challenge to The Martin Agency was to find a way to make our brand even more relevant to consumers and showcase all of the different bars we offer. The goal wasn't just awareness – we needed to connect with an emotional truth to help consumers think of Nature Valley differently.”

The Martin Agency’s Creative Director Lindsey King and Associate Creative Director Natalia Davila share: “The brand has always used nature as a backdrop and it was important to keep that consistency as we were introducing new products. But we did evolve it through cinematography and colour, bringing out the spectrum of greens and yellows found in nature to emphasise the brand’s colours, while working to push the humour to be a little bolder and quirkier.”

This introduces a gang of friendly forest creatures desperate for a taste of granola, while still staying true to the brand’s identity. Instead of relying on CGI, they used handcrafted puppetry in collaboration with some of the UK’s most renowned artists, whose credits include Labyrinth, Alice in Wonderland and The Muppets.

King and Davila add: “To us, there was something so charming about a puppet, before it even opens its tiny animatronic mouth, it already has character – in the way it moves, its eyes, its imperfect gestures, even its fake fur blowing in the wind – that tactile quality almost feels more real than a hyper-realistic, beautifully done CG animal.”

The campaign will roll out in phases across online and social channels through 2026.

This was a new approach to Nature Valley’s typical advertising, which made for a strong ad, landing in the top 20% of US ads for ability to drive short-term sales (Sales Impact: 82) and brand equity over the long term (Brand Impact: 80).

The adorable puppets and the unexpected dancing and talking raccoon help this ad to be very distinctive, allowing it to drive great reach and be noticed and remembered (Distinctiveness: 4.1 vs. 3.7 norm, Claimed Attention 4.2 vs. 3.9 norm, Brand Distinctiveness 3.9 vs. 3.7 norm).

Brand recall is on par with the average US ad for the total audience (Unaided Brand Recall: 71% vs. 70%). But it was much higher for audiences 45 and above (Unaided Brand Recall: 86% vs. 80%), which means that older audiences are more likely to remember the Nature Valley brand in the ad.

In fact, the older audiences were also more likely to agree that the ad communicates key category attributes about the Nature Valley brand than younger audiences as well, such as: 

• Great taste: 64%

• For everyone: 62%

• Healthy option: 57%

• Satisfying: 53%

After watching the ad, audiences overall feel good about the Nature Valley brand (Brand Appeal: 4.2 vs. 3.9 norm) and believe that Nature Valley delivers what they expect from a granola bar brand (Brand Meets Needs: 4.2 vs. 4.1 norm), with some describing it as:

• “That even the animals out in nature want to eat the granola bars.”

• “That everyone wants a Nature Valley Granola Bar.”

• “Nature Valley uses quality ingredients and makes a satisfying and enjoyable bar.” 

The ad strongly resonates, as all ages thoroughly enjoy it (Enjoyment: 4.2 vs. 3.9 norm), find it relevant (Relevance: 3.9 vs. 3.7 norm) and feel something positive while watching it (Overall Emotion: 66 vs. 57 norm). 

Diving deeper into how it made them feel, the ad sits in the sweet spot of being loved (Love: 35% vs. 27% norm) and making people laugh (Laughter: 19% vs. 7% norm)! 

The ad begins with a strong mix of love and like as the family sits down and opens a Nature Valley bar. As the animal puppets start popping up there’s laughter and a bit of surprise. There’s more laughter as the raccoon starts inching toward the family, and some love as they tell him the Nature Valley bar isn’t for him. Laughter starts increasing as the raccoon starts talking (with more surprise) and then it reaches its highest point when the raccoon starts dancing. The ad ends with love as the end card comes up, the voiceover says “Nature Valley, we make nature delicious,” and the raccoon tries to grab the boxes of Nature Valley bars.  

When it comes to what viewers liked specifically, they really enjoyed the people and characters — specifically the animals but the family were also mentioned. In fact, the characters were the most liked aspect of the ad (26%). People also mentioned the emotional appeal (13%) including that the ad was cute and funny, the story (6%) and visuals (4%). 

Here's what some people had to say: 

• "I liked that it’s a humorous ad to begin with. It’s believable. If you’ve ever gone camping you know animals love human snacks. The ad is endearing and sweet. When the raccoon breaks character and offers to dance, that's a great punchline."

• "The funny wildlife, the raccoon is my favorite. I love the sound the fox made when poking his head out of the hole.”

• "I liked the family enjoying hiking together in the woods. I liked the cute animals noticing the granola bars. I especially liked the raccoon who was pleading for a bar."

• "I liked the puppets used for the animals, and the general cinematography. The Nature Valley bar also looked very good."

• "I like everything about the ad. Especially all the animals that are in the woods in the raccoon talking and dancing."

• "I like how it shows it can be eaten anywhere, and that every one, even animals, will love it."

What a different but fitting new ad from Nature Valley! What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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