Marketing Energy Burn To Sell Energy Bars

In July, Clif Bar hosts the Clif Kid Game of the Year contest, which asks kiddies to get active by inventing backyard games. General Mills brand Nature Valley gives adults a similar nudge with its Trail View website, where couch potatoes watch pedestrian-level views of hiking paths in our national parks (and hopefully get inspired to literally take a hike). But moseying around the backyard and virtual hiking don't exactly scream calorie burn—how long does it take these hardly active activities to burn off the health bars they're selling? We crunched the numbers.

120 calories in a Clif Kid Z Bar	190 calories in a Nature Valley bar
55 calories What a child burns in 30 minutes of backyard games	68 calories What an adult burns in 30 minutes of computer activity
66 minutes Time to burn a Clif Bar while participating in the Clif Bar contest	84 minutes Time to burn a Nature Valley bar while visiting the Trail View site

A version of this article appeared in the July/August 2012 issue of Fast Company magazine.