Melinda Messenger to front Uncle Ben’s Chilli Tuesdays

Fronted by celebrity mum Melinda Messenger, the campaign is aimed at encouraging consumers to spend quality time with the family by enjoying a film and good food, whilst promoting the Mexican Chilli Range re-launched earlier this year.

From 8th October, consumers will be encouraged to visit www.chillituesdays.com to vote for their favourite film food moment, download their favourite Chilli recipes and sign-up to a month's free trial with LoveFilm, courtesy of Uncle Ben's.

For every sign-up, LoveFilm will donate £10 to Barnardo's, the children's charity. Visitors can click through to the Barnardo's site and see how their donation will benefit the charity, as well as being able to make an additional donation.

Suzanne McFarlin, Customer Marketing Manager at Uncle Ben's says: “Melinda's the perfect ambassador for Chilli Tuesdays – she's a celeb mum with lots to juggle, but still recognises the importance of family mealtimes. Working with Melinda, LoveFilm and Barnardo's we want to drive the message that despite our busy lifestyles, we can all spend quality time over a great meal with our families.”

With autumn being the most popular time for eating Chilli Con Carne, retailers are poised to maximise sales opportunities around this seasonal time by increasing visibility in store.

With autumn being the most popular time for eating Chilli Con Carne, retailers are poised to maximise sales opportunities around this seasonal time by increasing visibility in store. The Uncle Ben's brand has 22.9% of Mexican WCS sales, driven by sales of Uncle Ben's Chilli con Carne Medium (500g) and Hot (500g), which are the top 2 best selling lines within the Mexican WCS SKUs and worth £5.5m in value sales.

In February 2007, Uncle Ben's launched Uncle Ben's Chilli Con Carne Mild in response to consumer demand for a convenient, authentic, mild cooking sauce solution. Uncle Ben's has achieved sales of £6.1m out of a total of £26.8m in Mexican Wet Cooking Sauces.

McFarlin continues, “This is the third year that Uncle Ben's has been raising money for Barnardo's projects across the UK, and with the total now standing at ₤50,000, Chilli Tuesdays promises to keep up this good work!”

Melinda Messenger says: “I'm delighted to get involved with the Chilli Tuesdays campaign; I'm a firm believer in the importance of spending quality time with the family, and it's even more beneficial as the campaign will raise money to help improve the lives of some of the country's most under-privileged kids.”

The launch of the Uncle Ben's Chilli Tuesdays campaign is being driven by PR activity.

In addition, Barnardo's will promote the campaign to all its partners and affiliates via newsletters, information packs and posters and will encourage Barnardo's centres across the UK to hold their own Chilli Tuesdays.

Chilli Tuesdays information will also feature across all internal and external communications. In addition to a £10,000 donation to the children's charity, Uncle Ben's is donating rice and chilli to select Barnardo's projects for the duration of the Chilli Tuesdays campaign.