Kraft Foods is rolling out a new product, a refrigerated milk-and-granola bar called MilkBite—a bar that features a character. Mel, a puppet that is pushing the product was created by Jim Henson Creature Shop that helped to populate Sesame Street and Droga5 late last year.

Mel is a 6-inches tall bar with low self-esteem and will try to make his way in a series of video spots debuting this week, says Adage. According to Michelle Lorge, the brand’s senior manager, he’s having an existential crisis. “He’s trying to figure out what he is—part milk, part granola,” she said. “And through that self journey, he is telling the product story,” she added.

Being a son of a glass of milk and a bowl of granola, Mel accuses his parents of his miseries saying “You didn’t think, did you. You didn’t think what life was going to be like for me…for your son!”

The bar, created by researcher Gary Smith, who got the idea one morning when he and his daughter left home in a hurry without time for their usual breakfast cereal, is baked in real milk which keeps it moist and gives the calcium equivalent of an eight-ounce glass of milk.

It was not an easy task for Droga5 agency to create something outstanding for the MilkBite campaign as 100 new granola bars entering the category on an average year. The category is overrun with images of hikers and mountain bikers, so the agency was drawn toward an idea that would break through that clutter with an emotional connection, said Droga5 Creative Director January Vernon to AdAge.

MilkBite rolls out in four different flavors: strawberry, mixed berry, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin and chocolate. After Kraft and the agency decided Mel was to be of the strawberry variety, a problem of the fruit incorporating came up.

“When we went to try to capture the strawberries, the paint samples looked a little like he was bleeding or it was tomato sauce or a pizza thing,” said Creature Shop creative director Jason Weber. So, they invented a red outfit “as a nod to the strawberry bar’s real wrapper (mylar)”.

The campaign includes commercials that will appear both on TV and on YouTube. The digital presence is enhanced with Mel’s first-person «video diaries» on Facebook.

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese has launched a philantropic project.