Situation
Early 2017, Jennie-O Turkey realized that one of their product lines was particularly well suited for restaurants that smoked their own meat. Turkey was only available in about 20% of foodservice establishments with a smoker on-site. To date, no major turkey supplier had marketed specifically to this segment of the restaurant market.
Challenge
Create an efficient campaign to encourage more smokehouses to add Jennie-O turkey to their menu.
Insights
Smoking meat in the US is a regional tradition that goes back generations. Some regions smoke poultry, others don’t. In our operator interviews, we found that some operators were almost hostile to the idea of trying a new protein. Loss of credibility with their customers, and their peers, was a main concern. Many were afraid no one would order something new that wasn’t common in their region.
Role
I was the main point of the contact with the client, created the campaign strategy, and led the internal agency team working on this campaign.
Action
My team created a trial strategy, with a primary tactic of supporting the sales call. The goal was to incentivize operators to try smoking turkey, and put it on their limited-time specials board. If they would take that first step, they would see for themselves if it sold in their restaurant. That short-term trial minimized their risk of losing credibility with their peers and customers.
Arming the sales team to sell to this new channel was a key to success. The tactics were broken down into three sections: pre-sales call, during the call, and post sales call.
Prior to the sales call, we trained the sales team, and created training videos for the broader broker network to ensure everyone attending the sales call understood the resources available to help them close the sale. The operator’s interest was piqued with a series of direct mail and e-blasts that promised free trial product, and carried messages that turkey was more profitable than other meats and could expand consumer appeal.
To support the sales call, new sales collateral was created, including: unique menu ideas with photos, table top and point of sale collateral to promote turkey, and offers for a free case of product to support operators’ first week’s sales.
Post call, operators were encouraged to advance turkey from the special board onto the menu. We reminded operators of the profit upside through additional direct mail and e-blast, and created a menu contest where operators could win publicity from a Food Network Chef, travel, and promotional materials.
Result
After the launch of the campaign, in the second half of the year, sales calls exceeded client expectations by more than double, and product sales were ahead of goal.
Theodore Schweitz 