According to the Washington Post, Disney is working a new kind of marketing: health. They ended their long-running McDonalds marketing contract (no more oddly immobile cheap Cinderella or Little Mermaid dolls along with your four McNuggets) and instead decided to plug fruits. And vegetables. And eggs. Actual foods. While it could have been a risky move, Disney has seen nothing but positive results, both in terms of profitability and the pats on the back for corporate responsibility.

When the cartoon Popeye the Sailor Man emerged in the United States in the 1920s, sales of his signature food, spinach, rose by one-third. Today, Disney is hoping that Zac Efron can do the same for avocados. And Mickey Mouse for eggs. And Tinker Bell for corn on the cob.

Disney’s practice of licensing its characters for placement on children’s food products is not new, but its strategy is. Whereas cereal boxes and fast-food bags used to be prime real estate for company-to-kid marketing, alarming rates of childhood obesity caused Disney to think twice about aligning its name with sugary or fatty foods. So over the past few years, Disney has gradually distanced itself from junk food. It ended its McDonald’s Happy Meal contract in 2006 and has been expanding its association with healthier foods since then. The result: an abundance of Disney-branded healthy stuff, including fruits, vegetables and dairy products.

This explains the advent of Disney-branded eggs, which landed on store shelves in Florida and New York in late March. The outside packaging of the egg carton brandishes Mickey’s smiling mug and the message: “Good source of Protein.” Each eggshell has been stamped with the face of a different Disney character — from Tigger to Buzz Lightyear. Skeptics may doubt that any parent would pay more for branded eggs or that kids would eat them just because of a cartoon endorsement. But, however silly it may seem, if the past is any indicator, these eggs will be golden for Disney.

[From the Washington Post]

Disney started by branding apples the only way they could: the little stickers. Their best promotion is the “High School Musical” avocado. You read that right. At first I was wondering how they managed to get Zac Efron on an avocado – aside from the possibility of that teeny, tiny sticker. What they ended up doing was putting HSM promotional photos on the top packaging of avocado bags. And it worked really well for them: after the summer avocado season came the fall release of the latest “High School Musical” film. No word on if there was any product placement, like Efron casually pulling a wholesome avocado from his shirt and munching on it. Maybe playfully throwing the pit at Vanessa Hudgens.

Can you imagine if they found a way to actually put their images on the pits? There are all sorts of crazy things you can do with … farm technology. I have no idea what the word for crazy vegetable science is. But someone gave me a plant where you were supposed to write a word on the seed, plant it, and the word would bloom on it. I haven’t actually gotten around to this veggie techno marvel, but I assume it works. I’m guessing there’s a place for Disney promotional material on a variety of fruits and vegetables – and more creative places than a sticker.

Regardless of if this is about corporate social responsibility or just making a buck, I’m all for it. I say do whatever it takes to make healthy food appealing to kids. I grew up in the eighties, when Happy Meals came inside those awesome toy boats in the summer, and you could collect a variety of outfits for your McNuggets. Who in the world would want an apple compared to that? I think if someone had stuffed a plastic “101 Dalmations” dog inside that apple (I’m not pretending to know how… or that it’s safe), I would have been a lot more likely to eat towards that prize.

The Washington Post talks about a Hannah Montana banana, which I believe is about the next best idea to stuffing plastic toys inside fruit. But I think they’re almost limiting themselves by being too practical with stickers and cardboard packaging. Why not a purple and silver glitter covered banana, with Miley Cyrus’ face on it? Or somehow dressing it up to look like her microphone? I may be getting carried away, but I think I have a real future in making produce cross-promotion snazzier.