Don't add anything.

Prego pasta sauce, introduced in 1981, is a new kid on the block compared to Ragu, which came onto the market in 1937 and continues to show the power of being the first to market. Now, pasta sauces are recovering from a decline in pasta consumption attributed to South Beach and Atkins, and Prego is introducing a new ad campaign based on its taste differential: the message is that Prego tastes great without adding anything.

Ever since marketers discovered that they could sell more cake mixes by having users add an egg to the mix, women have been adding big or little somethings to make convenience meals their own. However, we have come to a time when some people aren't comfortable adding anything more than ketchup to a burger, some aren't scratch cooking at all, and some don't trust anything from big brands that isn't organic, and may even be dubious about that.

Shoppers who are opting out of the big brands tend to believe that "when it comes to food, you get what you pay for." Some of those people believe that when you are paying a lot and getting really good food, you don't have to doctor it up. Prego isn't quite in that category, but the time for Campbell's add-nothing-to-Prego ads may be just right. After all, they are marketing to a generation of people who eat most, or nearly most, of their meals at restaurants, where they can't add anything but salt and pepper. And when I look around at restaurants, I see the older people shaking the salt and sprinkling the pepper, while the younger people are eating the foods as they are served.

Happy Greenings, Mona Doyle

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