Elmo Sings Compleat Anthem for Tube-Fed Kids in the U.S.

Elmo just gave the "tubie" community its first theme song.

Compleat, Nestlé Health Science's tube feeding nutrition brand, released "What Is Better Than How," an original song and video featuring Sesame Street's Elmo.

The project is billed as the first song of its kind, aimed at a community that still struggles for visibility.

Nearly 500,000 people in the U.S. use feeding tubes at any given time, according to the Feeding Tube Awareness Foundation.

Tube feeding stays widely misunderstood even at this scale, and Compleat is using Elmo's familiarity to shorten the explanation.

"Compleat believes every child deserves to be seen for who they are, not defined by how they eat," Priyanka Malhotra, director of marketing for Compleat at Nestlé Health Science, said in a statement.

"By bringing this experience to life with Elmo, one of the world's most beloved and iconic characters, Compleat hopes to foster greater awareness and representation."

Sesame Workshop views the partnership as an extension of its long-running approach to help kids feel represented on screen.

"For more than 55 years, Sesame Workshop has helped children see themselves and others reflected in the stories we tell," Jennifer Ahearn, senior VP of global strategic partnerships at Sesame Workshop, shared.

Ahearn credits the character itself with doing the emotional work.

"Friends like Elmo have a unique ability to spark understanding, build empathy, and help children and families feel seen, included, and celebrated," she added.

Elmo holds a five-year-old's attention long enough for a health message to register, which is why Compleat commissioned a catchy song.

Every brand partnership in pediatric health has to win a child's attention and a parent's trust at the same time.

A Song With Personalized Verses

Developed by Accompany Creative, the video sees Elmo visiting families during mealtime and encountering the many ways children eat.

This includes games and playful rituals, as well as different physical methods of receiving nourishment.

The refrain runs through the ways people eat, with a fork, a spoon, or a tube. What matters is that the child is nourished, loved, and accepted.

The song and video are live at Compleat.com/WhatIsBetterThanHow, along with Spotify, YouTube, and Compleat's Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook pages.

Notably, Compleat cast real tube-fed families to make the spot feel more authentic, giving the campaign's brand identity a grounding in lived experience.

Families can also generate customizable verses that reflect their own feeding journey and transform a piece of brand content into something closer to a keepsake.

The Nestlé Health Science Foundation is also giving Sesame Workshop a $50,000 grant through its employee engagement program.

The money funds Sesame Workshop's Library Initiative, which supplies educational resources to tube-fed children and their families.

Compleat also supports the tube-feeding community through existing ties to the Oley Foundation and the Cerebral Palsy Foundation.

84% of Consumers Trust Inclusive Brands

Disability-inclusive campaigns build measurably more trust with consumers.

Misfit Media, a disability-led creative agency, says consumers are 84% more likely to trust a brand that includes disabled people in its marketing.

The same agency puts the share who would switch to an inclusive competitor, even at a higher price, at 73%.

Its audit of more than 500 ads found that campaigns including disability drove 65% higher ROI.

This trust premium matters most in health marketing, where audiences arrive skeptical of any claim a company makes about their bodies.

Elmo lets Compleat start the conversation past this skepticism.

Here are three moves any brand can copy from this campaign:

• Borrow trust instead of building it from zero: Using a character audiences already love, like Elmo, shortcuts the education curve a health brand would otherwise need years to earn.
• Cast the community, not actors: Compleat's use of real tube-fed families gives the campaign a credibility that a scripted spot can't fake.
• Build in a reason to keep the content: The personalized verse tool keeps the campaign moving, so families can revisit and share them on their own timeline.

Research explains why inclusion sells, and execution decides whether anyone watches twice.

Compleat spent the budget on something families would replay by choice, which is the harder half of any brand awareness strategy built on representation.

Medical nutrition brands rarely speak to the kid at the table; they speak to the clinician above it.

Compleat just flipped that, and we think that's the part worth noticing.

A tube-feeding brand chose a puppet over a pediatrician to carry its brand message, which tells us this campaign was never really about the product.

It's more about giving a medical routine a place at the family dinner table.

Health brands usually reach for warmth by running patient testimonials and calling it representation.

Compleat did something rarer by letting a children's character explain the child's own life back to them.

And we think it's a smart move that many competitors haven't made yet.