|
POTATOES…GOODNESS UNEARTHED™ Beginning this month, 79.8 million American mothers will learn a simple—but powerful—message:
|
 |
DELIVERING A NATIONAL AUDIENCE FOR THE US POTATO MESSAGE Appearing September 2008 through March 2009 in Cooking Light, Redbook, Southern Living, Taste of Home, Weight Watchers, Parents, Family Circle and Woman’s Day, the new $1 million “Peel Back the Truth” advertising campaign will deliver a total of 90.3 million impressions to 79.8 million women, age 25-54, with kids in their household and who are the key meal decision-makers for 48.6% of all US households.
The United States Potato Board’s (USPB’s) “Potatoes…Goodness Unearthed™” tagline and positioning is the culmination of nearly two years of comprehensive industry input, ideation and extensive market and consumer research driving the decisions at every critical step of the campaign development process. Designed to help consumers connect with the core nutrition message “potatoes are good for you”— “Potatoes…Goodness Unearthed” creates a new attitude and gives consumers a new way of looking at potatoes to which they have always related—potatoes are a healthy, nutritious, good tasting, nurturing food. Bart Connors, a Washington State fresh grower-shipper and 2008-2009 USPB Chairman emphasizes, “It was important for the industry to create a long-term, cohesive message that communicates to consumers in a way that fits with today’s lifestyles. Communication is something our industry struggles with at times, and having a relevant conversation with consumers is extremely important to increasing demand. I think “Potatoes...Goodness Unearthed” gives our industry the tool to promote how potatoes are an important part of consumers’ lives by providing some health benefits, but also on an emotional level that connects with consumers’ feelings about potatoes. The combination of the health and emotional benefits creates a powerful message that rings in consumers’ minds." Peel Back the Truth
For the USPB’s newest marketing partner, the Sterling-Rice Group (SRG) of Boulder, CO, and the creative genius behind Frontier Airlines’ “A Whole Different Animal” campaign, “It's Not Delivery, It's DiGiorno” for Kraft Foods’ DiGiorno frozen pizza brand and a client list that reads like a who’s who of top American and multi-national companies, the challenge was to create a campaign that aligned with the Potatoes Goodness Unearthed™ positioning and supported the idea there was new, good news about potatoes people would be interested in. “Despite being ‘America’s Favorite Vegetable’, and despite the fact people really enjoy eating them, there is a fundamental perception potatoes are unhealthy and fattening. People simply cut back on eating potatoes because of negative health perceptions. To make an impact, the new campaign needed to be highly motivating for consumers, correct misperceptions, and ultimately spread the good news about potatoes,” explained Buddy Ketchner, SRG Managing Partner.
After exploring six campaign concepts and testing three, the Peel Back the Truth campaign rose to the top. The new campaign directly addresses the misconceptions and hurdles preventing people from eating potatoes. “Sometimes people have such deeply held beliefs about a product that they just can't hear any new news, no matter how good it is. This campaign is about addressing some of these lingering beliefs head-on and setting the record straight. In short we are de-bunking the myths that potatoes are a fattening starch so people can see that they are in fact a lean, clean, nutritious, delicious machine. This very simple, focused approach should help make that message stick once and for all.” says Steve Witt, Creative Director of the USPB campaign at Sterling-Rice Group. Ketchner continued, “The US potato industry’s newly developed positioning, ‘Potatoes…Goodness Unearthed’ gave us the perfect creative platform to set the record straight and help consumers rediscover potatoes as a healthy food for today’s active families. The Peel Back the Truth campaign gave us a way to deliver new news about potatoes.” Meet “Linda” After exhaustive market research, the industry determined the “sweet spot” for potato consumption remains a target consumer epitomized by a consumer target identified as “Linda”. “Linda” is a mother with children under 18 years old at home. “Linda” is heedful of her family’s taste when it comes to eating and is concerned for her and her family’s health/wellness. She tries to buy healthy foods, but is aware of price. And even though she doesn’t have a lot of extra time, making dinner at home is important to her. “Linda” is a person who will make a difference for potatoes. She is most open to our message, and ultimately is most likely to eat more potatoes and spread the good news to her friends and family. To clearly support the identification of “Linda” as potatoes’ target consumer, National Eating Trends (NET) data, confirms “Linda” consumed 50.2% of all potatoes in 2005–2006 and 45.5% of all fresh potatoes. “If we are going to ‘move the needle’ on demand for fresh potatoes, ‘Linda’ represents our greatest opportunity to connect with our message that potatoes are a healthy, nutritious and good tasting food for today’s active family,” emphasized Jim Knutzon, President & CEO, Farm Fresh Direct LLC, Monte Vista, CO. “Throughout the development of this campaign, we conducted market research and consumer testing at every major decision point. Without question, this has to be the most thoroughly researched consumer messaging campaign ever created by the US potato industry.” With a limited budget and a lot of “Lindas” to reach, SRG created a media plan focused purely on print publications. The approved plan delivers the most efficient and effective media and message targeting, reaching 45% of our target audience, and accounting for approximately 35.6MM “Lindas”. The eight selected publications will provide the highest reach to “Linda”, while also providing the USPB relevant editorial alignment— the campaign will run within the following highly relevant categories: food lifestyle, parenting, health, and women's service. In addition to running in magazines, added value opportunities were secured to create even more exposure for potatoes. SRG negotiated over $300,000 in added value, ranging from event exposure to online placements to bonus space. SRG took the $1MM investment and really stretched these dollars to position potatoes front and center. MARKET & CONSUMER RESEARCH THROUGHOUT CONFIRMS THIS IS THE RIGHT MESSAGE TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCE At key decision points in the 11 months between June, 2007 and April, 2008, four major consumer research projects were initiated and completed related to the development of the “Potatoes… Goodness Unearthed” campaign. In total, 3,827 consumer interviews were conducted.
It all began with the appointment in May 2007 of Sterling Brands in New York City. Their assignment: Develop a compelling positioning, image, and tagline to promote usage of potatoes. In other words, an Industry Campaign Signature. While old hands at creating effective signatures for many other important marketing communications efforts, the experts at Sterling Brands were new to the US potato industry. So, with the help of the extensive consumer research library available from the USPB, they immersed themselves in the details of potato consumer sales, consumption habits, attitudes, and demographics. From the start it was clear potato nutrition would be the focus of the communication. But, how would nutrition best be communicated? A comprehensive examination of the possibilities resulted in identifying five possible creative platforms to support the central theme of nutrition. Each was represented by a one word headline idea, a single sentence, and an appropriate graphic.
Step 2: Five Possible Creative Platforms
Research was assigned the problem of determining which of those creative platforms did the best job of positively impacting key attitudes toward potatoes. In June 2007, 1,001 interviews were conducted with female heads-of-household who served potatoes at home, all across the US. Each participant was shown a single creative platform and asked how appealing they found it, the degree to which it was up-to-date and modern, presented a new and different way to talk about potatoes, told them something they didn’t know before, made them think more positively about potatoes, and increased their interest in preparing and serving potatoes. Then, the reactions of each set of 200 women were compared. Reactions to each of the platforms were quite positive. And, two creative platforms, Goodness and Nurture, performed best across all measurements. Next, Sterling Brands married these two platforms into a single creative strategy: “Goodness that Nurtures…potatoes nurture the body and spirit with fresh from the earth goodness.” This became the specification to both guide the creation and evaluation of the new industry campaign signature. Employing this creative strategy, Sterling Brands developed two possible theme lines and three possible graphic treatments. So, at this point, there were six possible campaign signatures.
Again, research was employed to determine which of these six possibilities performed the best with consumers. 1,204 female heads-of-household, representing all important demographics of the US were interviewed in November, 2007. Each randomly selected set of 200 women saw and evaluated one of the six campaign signatures. Half of the designs tended toward the top of every measure and one design, “Unearthed Leaf,” was recommended. That recommendation was accepted, the design was finalized, graphic rules and specifications were developed and “Potatoes…Goodness Unearthed” became the US potato industry’s new campaign signature. Next, the USPB set out to identify an advertising agency to develop a media campaign using the new campaign signature. After considering several possible alternatives, Sterling-Rice Group in Boulder, Colorado (totally unrelated to Sterling Brands in New York City), was awarded the task. After analyzing the target market and reaching agreement that magazines would be the most effective primary advertising medium, creative work was initiated. Once again, several alternatives were developed, three of which were thought to have the potential to move consumers: “Potato Appeal,” “Pound of Nutrition,” and “Peel Back the Truth.” One ad was created to represent each possible campaign and research was charged with determining which of the three did the best job of favorably influencing the consumer and should be used to kick off the media campaign. In April 2008, 620 consumers matching the “Linda” target market specifications were interviewed. Random sets of 200 saw and evaluated each ad (no participant saw more than one ad). “Peel Back the Truth” performed better than the others, hands down. It was very well liked, the message was considered important, and it did the best job of communicating something new and different about potatoes. Most important, eight of ten respondents said it made them feel better about eating potatoes because it told them potatoes were low in fat and calories and had an excellent profile of vitamins and minerals. One other research project important for this campaign was completed in January 2008. 1,002 women matching the “Linda” demographic were interviewed to determine their attitudes toward potatoes, their recall of current potato advertising, and the frequency of their use of potatoes. This will be the benchmark against which the campaign’s impact will be measured over time. If the campaign is successful, over the years we expect to see an improvement in key attitudes toward potatoes, and hopefully increased potato use. EXTENSIVE PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGN EXTENDS IMPACT OF NEW CAMPAIGN The “Peel Back the Truth” campaign, which nationally unveils the “Potatoes…Goodness Unearthed” campaign signature, launched in early September. This is an advertising and public relations flight working hand-in-hand, perfectly timed, to remind consumers potatoes are good for their families and fit with today’s active lifestyles. Here is a preview of the important elements to be delivered to both consumers and editors: The Ads The first ads appear in the September issues of Southern Living, Weight Watchers and Parents. Subscribers began receiving these magazines in mid-August. (The next set of ads will appear in Cooking Light, Redbook, Taste of Home, Family Circle and Woman’s Day in October) Increasing the visibility of the ad, the USPB consumer website, www.potatogoodness.com, has a new Intro Page—a 10-second, animated “Peel Back the Truth” ad that appears each time a visitor comes to the website. Publicity
On Tuesday, August 19, a business story was posted on the PR Newswire (on-line news service). In less than a week, the story was posted on more than 120 news websites, including Forbes.com and Yahoo Finance. The Chicago Sun Times not only ran the story in their print and on-line editions, but they ran the full “Peel Back the Truth” ad. As of August 25, results tally an impressive 9,043,884 impressions…the campaign signature even made its debut in Times Square on the Reuters electronic billboard. Additionally, a press kit was mailed to 500 editors of daily newspapers and national syndicates with the following materials:
Value-Added Opportunities Many of the magazines offered incentives beyond straight advertising, giving the USPB unique opportunities to reach consumers with the PR messaging:
A UNIFIED INDUSTRY EFFORT TO REVERSE DECLINE IN FRESH POTATO CONSUMPTION Though potatoes are consumed by 79 percent of US households 1.8 times per week in-home, per capita consumption has steadily declined during the past 10 years, as have many fresh produce items. The Fresh Demand Working Group (FDWG), a group of grower/shippers, state industry organization leaders, staff and members of the USPB Domestic Marketing Committee and staff and members of United Potato Growers of America (UPGA), convened during late 2006 to develop strategies to reverse the decline in fresh potato consumption. In researching consumer perceptions about fresh potatoes, it was learned potato messaging needed to highlight the nutrition facts of potatoes, but also go beyond the facts and connect the goodness of potatoes in a way that is relevant to consumers’ lives today.
The adoption of a new industry-wide message linking potato goodness with today’s consumers, “Potatoes...Goodness Unearthed” was the culmination of several months of in-depth consumer research by Sterling Brands, a leading New York City based international branding agency, whose previous work included the recently adopted “Fruits and Veggies, More Matters™” for the Produce for Better Health Foundation. This new message also represented industry input and ideation, all designed to help consumers connect with the core nutrition message “potatoes are good for you”—a message creating a new attitude and giving consumers a new way of looking at potatoes to which they have always related—potatoes are a healthy, nutritious, good tasting, nurturing food. Research and anecdotal accounts continue to show people love potatoes despite an onslaught of flawed and negative information from sources like low-carbohydrate dieting. This new nutrition campaign seeks to create a consumer message across all potato varieties, products and uses. “Potatoes…Goodness Unearthed” is intended to become a long-term, comprehensive, industry effort to establish a lasting identity for potatoes in the minds of consumers, just as “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner®”, “Pork. The Other White Meat®”, “Cotton. The Fabric of Our Lives®”, “Got Milk®” and other successful commodity promotion programs have sought to create strong bonds with consumers. Individual companies and state organizations can continue to build on this “goodness” message to develop their own unique marketing programs. “Potatoes…Goodness Unearthed” will deliver a base level nutrition message and consumer recognition all organizations can build on in their own programs to increase consumption of US fresh potatoes and potato products. Danny Johns, USPB Domestic Marketing Committee Co-Chair and Hastings, FL grower and packer summarizes, “To maximize the success of “Potatoes...Goodness Unearthed”, it is essential to promote the campaign in our individual operations through packaging, signage and other creative means to get the word out. The more our customers are exposed to the message the more effective it will become.” Connors agrees, “For the campaign to be successful, our industry needs to take ownership in the promotion of the message to consumers by using the artwork on packaging, signage, letterhead, etc., because with greater frequency, the industry will increase the return on investment we will receive from “Potatoes...Goodness Unearthed”. To get your own “Potatoes…Goodness Unearthed” campaign started, contact David Fairbourn, USPB Manager, Industry Communications & Policy at 303-873-2331 or david.faribourn@uspotatoes.com.
|
||||||||||||
|
Home | About Us | Contact Us ©2008 United States Potato Board
|
