During the 2012 season of Zespri kiwifruit, the largest kiwifruit distributor in the world announced its first annual campaign focused on Children’s Health with Kiwifruit in conjunction with the supermarket chain Soriana with the objective of promoting good nutritional habits in children.
Zespri and Soriana selected four charitable foundations, which represented the most important regions of Mexico, to promote the children’s health through proper nutrition and physical activity.
PARTICIPANT FOUNDATIONS
The dynamic of the campaign consisted on people playing within a microsite www.kiwisaludinfantil.com and answering trivia questions regarding health and nutrition, they won points for the charitable foundation and the region of their choice.
At the end of the campaign, the foundation with the most quantity of points achieved, won the amount of $60,000 Mexican pesos from Zespri; the second place $20,000 Mexican pesos and the two remaining foundations $10,000 Mexican pesos each. Zespri delivered an equivalent of $100,000 Mexican pesos between the four institutions.
The result of the campaign was positive as, during the 5 weeks of duration of the activity, sales of Zespri kiwifruit at Soriana increased by 28%.
“I am very happy that Zespri launches the Zespri’s Children Health Contest in Mexico as it is a vital topic for our country, in addition to joining the work of foundations with this campaign, as it will grant us with a very important awareness result… just to say that nobody here loses and we all somehow win.”, says Inés Masallach, spokeswoman of Zespri’s Children Health and Marketing Director of Imalinx Latin America.
Due to this campaign, Zespri was certified by the National Chamber of Women, as one of the 100 responsibly healthy companies in Mexico in 2013.
The program, created by Imalinx, was integrated with mass media and direct communication in point of sales by the end of 2012.
Didactic materials were produced and focused on families with children to encourage healthy eating of American popcorn.
The result of the marketing mix led to an increase in sales of 117% in selected stores.
The cooking workshop was coordinated by the Idaho Potato Commission on October and carried out in the British American School.
Parents, professors and media experienced the workshop with the chef Natalia Delgado, ambassador of the Idaho Potato Commission. Natalia promoted the “Good Eating” and highlighted the nutritional benefits of including Idaho potatoes in their daily diet.
Participants discovered the versatility of the products by cooking unique recipes with dehydrated as more than just mashed potato.
Below you will find some pictures of the Cooking Workshop.
As part of the consumer program of the Idaho Potato Commission, Imalinx created a strategy where Idaho products participated in the menu “The month of United States” of the restaurant chain Sanborn’s.
During July 2012, the USA menu was featured in all 200 Sanborns restaurants nationwide. The IPC participated with the inclusion of 2 different dishes featuring Idaho mashed potato.
The objective of the strategy was to generate brand awareness of Idaho mashed potatoes, and its quality. In addition, to position the brand and integrate the product in the daily diet of the smallest members of the family.
Different POS materials were used to support the program. Tent cards, posters, banners and newspaper ads were part of the campaign, all of which included the Grown in Idaho logo. Imalinx representative on behalf of the IPC also negotiated to have Spuddy Buddy visit 10 restaurants in Mexico City to create brand awareness among consumers.
The interaction between children and Spuddy Buddy was the most successful as 70% of children ordered a dish with potatoes, asked for pictures with Spuddy motley.
According to the sales information Sanborn´s provided us, in all 16,160 dishes featuring Idaho mashed Potato were sold over a 1-month period.
During the period August-September, a promotion of U.S. wines was executed for its consumption in Mexico. The project was carried out in coordination with the Western U.S. Agricultural Trade Association (WUSATA).
The promotion was developed through three components:
A seminar taught by Omar Barbosa, sommelier of the year. 42 restaurant managers and industry professionals attended to the event.
It included the participation of 10 restaurants in Mexico City, Monterrey and San Miguel de Allende, who promoted tastings of U.S. wines and used material of the campaign. This resulted in an increase in sales of 14%.
The campaign efforts were carried out through an investment in newspapers, magazines and the participation at the trade show Abastur. The national coverage had the objective to communicate the origin, benefits and characteristics of the product, achieving a total reach of 7.2 million consumers.
The event had two principal approaches. On one side, the menu created by host chefs Jared Reardon and Sonia Arias, consisted of a Thanksgiving dinner in which they integrated the products promoted by WUSATA.
The second objective was to develop material and activities for young people and children in an entertaining promotion, in order to teach them the story behind the festive days of Mexico and United States.
There was a total mass media coverage of more than $60,000 dollars and giant banners were placed within stores. In general, the campaign resulted in an increase of over $7 million dollars.
The contest was directed to Zespri buyers at Costco. The participants had to send the proof of payment and a creative recipe using Zespri kiwifruits.
Silvia was the winner of the contest with a delicious recipe of caramelized Linguini containing Gold kiwifruit. After its trip she delivered a testimonial which was published in the membership club’s magazine, making her a loyal consumer and ambassador for Costco and Zespri.
The gathering of data from competitors was fundamental to create a data base which was used to prepare the communication strategy for the next season of Zespri kiwifruit.
With the motive of the World Cup of Soccer in Germany 2006, Costco’s magazine Contacto published an announcement, showing the two varieties of Zespri kiwifruits as fans in the stadium.
The announcement invited the reader to contact Zespri to receive a special spoon (spifes) to eat their kiwifruits.
The campaign was one of the most successful for the magazine in terms of direct marketing as in total more than 6,000 spifes were sent to the whole Republic.
A national contest in 2006 with Chilean peaches, plums and nectarines in Soriana supermarkets with ASOEX transformed the life of a loyal customer.
The contest, sponsored by LanChile, consisted in sending a recipe with the fruits, a reason to travel to Chile and a purchase ticket. This contest granted the winner, María Eugenia, a 2 weeks holiday in Chile, who moved after falling in love with the country.
Sales during the promotion increased by 65% compared to the previous year.
Due to the great influence that trainers have and knowing one of the main targets of Zespri, an alliance was created between Les Mills, an specialized company in exercise routines and conditioning and Zespri kiwifruit to train the coaches about the nutritional benefits of consuming Zespri kiwifruit and its importance of making it part of a healthy lifestyle.
More than 1,000 instructors, gym owners and nutritionists from all the country participated and became the official spokesmen of Zespri. In addition, the trainer with the highest “Zespri passion” travelled to the Les Mills corporation located in Auckland, New Zealand.