IPC had the initiative to promote Idaho Potatoes as a healthy carbohydrate since one of the biggest challenges of potatoes is the belief that carbohydrates provide negative effects in diets. Through athletes such as Paola Longoria, Charlie Sarmiento and Oso Negro a “good carbohydrates” campaign was launched.
The biggest challenge was to find the athletes and spokesperson for the campaign, since they had to show a good image and be an example for consumers. We managed to contact Paola Longoria, one of the best racquetball players in the world, with 334mil followers on Instagram, Paola has been talking about the IPC for 3 months and has made recipes, routines, and publications with more than 1700 likes about the benefits of potatoes. Charlie Sarmiento has carried publicity on his networks and has given talks on health and sports with more than 480 reproductions. While IPC became an official sponsor of the Ultra Marathon “Black Bear” with whom we will have advertising throughout 2021 and until the race in January 2022 with banners of the account in training and advertising on social networks of the race.
On behalf of the Western United States Agricultural Trade Association (WUSATA) and coordinated by Beto Lanz 15 companies participated in the first recipe program in Mexico with the main objective of promoting value-added food and beverage products in the Mexican gastronomic industry.
The chefs who participated were Chef Pablo Salas, from Amaranta Restaurant; Josefina Santa Cruz, from Sesame; Chuy Elizondo, from Benell; Oscar Herrera, from Flor de Nogal; and Bianca Castro, from Biscottis Bakery. The companies that participated in this first recipe program were Agropur, Northwest Hazelnuts, Farmer’s Rice, Fresh Nature Foods, Barber’s food, Limoneira, Smile Foods, Royal Ridge, Shining Ocean, Pure palms, Jacey Cakes, Colorado Potatoes, Traina Foods, Bow & Arrow and Sadaf Foods.
Each company selected one chef to received the ingredients . Among those products were surimi, dried apricots, hazelnuts, fresh green garbanzo beans, potatoes, and gouda cheese. Each product with a different flavor and origin.
The recipes developed were published on the Chefs’ social networks and reposted on the official WUSATA social media pages, resulting in + 2, 218, 290 people reached and 1, 028, 900 views.
As part of the “Taste of the West” campaign, and with the challenge to communicate where to buy the products to consumers Wusata had communication through Walmart and HEB channels.
The campaign was achieved through digital advertising in both chains, a Landing page was created with all the products from the promotion, also banners on website and offsite communication (materials through social media). There was a total of 1103% growth in visits compared to the season without promotion and more than 9,600 interactions with consumers on the banners.
At the end of this project, a digital recipe book was developed now available in: https://issuu.com/home/published/taste_of_the_west_original
We distributed 7,810 boxes of Wonderful Halos through an e-commerce strategy with Walmart Mexico.
In February we contacted the Walmart e-commerce department to develop a strategy that increases the brand awareness of the Wonderful Halos Mandarins. The main objective was to educate our customers on the goods of this Wonderful product.
With the e-commerce team of Walmart we coordinated the delivery of Halos surprises, a total of 25 Walmart stores from Mexico City and Guadalajara distributed 7,10 boxes with two halos mandarins inside (340 boxes for Mexico and 225 in Guadalajara) These boxes were sent to any customer which had purchased $200 pesos in fresh products.
SALES REPORT (Official data from Walmart E-commerce Department)
In conjunction with Sam´s Club, a plan was made for samplings of California Raisins in 30 different stores, covering 20 states of Mexican Republic. The promotional product was under the name “Members Mark; own brand of Sam´s Club.
The promotion was supported by social media and printed materials to share recipes, nutritional data and, the benefits of eating 40 g. raisins a day with consumers. The goal was to invite young consumers and moms to include California Raisins on their daily diet as a healthy snack.
The result of the promotion was positive with a total of 3.5 tons of raisins were sold, on average sales per day with demo girls were 170 bags with 1.3 kg of California raisins each.
As part of the Retail Marketing campaign with Superama, Zespri joined the initiative to be the first fruit to have a e-commerce campaign with giveaway at Superama online.
Twenty Superama stores in Mexico City were selected in 4 different weeks of the season, to send 9 000 gift boxes to consumers.
For every online purchase of fruits and vegetables at the participating stores they were given a single box of kiwifruit Zespri® Sungold. The aim of this campaign was for more consumers to know this variety of Golden pulp, sweet taste and full of vitality and to encourage their consumption.
As part of the strategy, Real California Milk achieved the implementation of four different promotions in Local Pizza Chains located in three regions of Mexico, such as the Northwest (Tijuana, Jhon’s Pizza), Northeast (Monterrey, I Like Pizza and Pizza Deprizza) and, at the Center of the Country (Mexico City, Pizza Amore).
In addition, the promotions include marketing support for the development of point-of-sale printed materials, uniforms, digital communication and the use of the Real California Milk Seal on pizza boxes.
Pizza promotions with Real California Milk have represented an increase in cheese volume sales of 17 tons per month.
Imalinx developed a promotional strategy at the Amusement Park Six Flags Mexico in conjunction with Real California Milk Mexico and Johnny Rockets Restaurant, as the cheese used in its burgers is California Cheddar Cheese.
Activities were carried out for consumers at point of sale, social media and printed materials such as tablecloths and banners placed in different points at the park.
There was a 26 % increase in sales compared to 2017 vs. 2018.
In conjunction with Jhon´s Pizza, a menu promotion was held on the pizzas sold at the 2 points of sale at the stadium. Both brands had a reach potential of 36, 000 people in each of the games played.
Since the promotion, the increase in sales volume of Mozzarella Cheese was 25% per month. Due to this menu promotion, Jhon’s Pizza is evaluating the opening of its eighth restaurant within the area where the stadium is located.
The Wonderful Halos Mandarins program in Mexico worked hand in hand with the supermarket chains Walmart and Superama for a period of 5 months (December 2018-April 2019).
With the support of Retail Marketing communication and activities in point of sale, a total of 546 sampling days and 169 promotional days were achieved in 69 shops distributed in 7 cities.
The activities represented an increase in sales of 67.4 % compared to shops that had no samplings.
NuChef previously participated with Imalinx in 2016, in the Idaho Potato Commission project, “Blogger Harvest Tour”. Since its beginning in 2004. then the NuChef community has grown significantly.
Imalinx decided to collaborate with them to create an activity in order to position the Idaho Potatoes in the market, the activity consisted of two given workshops where people could cook using Idaho Potatoes, the first one focused on housewives early in the morning and the second one for executives in the afternoon.
The menu created was:
As a gift, participants received fresh Idaho Potatoes at the end of the workshop. The potatoes used were sponsored by Grupo Dispersa.
The workshops had 36 participants, who got involved in learning more about ways to cook with Idaho Potatoes and seeing the results of the workshop they shared their experience in their social networks.