Hidden Valley?s Ranch is aiming to show consumers how its products can be used to spice up recipes through a new mobile advertising campaign.

The Hidden Valley ads let users browse recipes, watch videos and share content via social media. The mobile ads are running inside TV Guide?s iPhone application.

"If the ad is running across a highly trafficked site, and is a great product, the mobile ads, no matter if it is a recipe or a video will be in front of a huge consumer mobile base that otherwise would not be as easy to market to in a traditional marketing way," said Marci Troutman, CEO of SiteMinis, Atlanta.

"Also, if the ads include a video that is entertaining, the 'share' capacity of this through social can raise this awareness by a very large multiple," she said.

"The same would apply to recipes ? who does not want a great recipe from Hidden Valley?"

Ms. Troutman is not affiliated with Hidden Valley. She commented based on her expertise on the subject.

Hidden Valley did not respond to press inquiries.

Hidden Valley is part of consumer-packaged-goods giant The Clorox Co. of home care, food and personal care products. Hidden Valley?s line of products include condiments, salad dressings, dips and mixes.

Mobile cooker
The mobile ads promote a recipe for a ranch pork chop and encourage users to tap on the banner to get the recipe.

The ad then directs users to Hidden Valley?s mobile site where they can browse products by category. Each product includes a picture of the nutritional information and a quick description of how consumers can use the product.

Users can share product information via Facebook and Google Plus. Compared to other mobile initiatives that push Facebook and Twitter as the primary social media sites, the ads are unique to focus on Google Plus as a way to spread a brand?s message.

The recipes tab is separated into categories including courses, ingredient and cuisine. Each recipe includes step-by-step instructions on how to prepare a dish, reviews and related products.

As an additional way to show users how to prepare the meals, embedded YouTube clips show users how to mix up their own meals that use Hidden Valley products.

Marketing recipe
The Hidden Valley ads combine multiple digital initiatives ? including social media, video and advertising ? into one place.

Not only is Hidden Valley able to bolster its brand awareness via the ads, the company is also using recipes to show users how to cook recipes, which could lead to increased sales.

In particular, the TV Guide app is an interesting place for Hidden Valley to run the campaign since consumers are most likely sitting on their couches at home while using the app and might be looking for a quick and easy dinner.

Hidden Valley is not the only food company using mobile ads to promote its business.

Recently, Ragu used a similar ad campaign to promote its line of pasta sauces (see story).

"Mobile ads help brands eliminate the need for a consumer to search a site for a promotion with extensive clicks by one click from an ad that will allow the consumer to go straight into the promotion immediately," Ms. Troutman said.

"With a quick click-through from ad to landing page, consumers can easily see a recipe from the ad while shopping, scan a code for purchase or view a video ? again eliminating multiple clicks or searches on a mobile site for quick and easy ROI," she said.

"Mobile ads help tracking for all marketing and traceable clicks on marketing collateral can help marketing, advertising, print, digital and all departments within a company."

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York