Point of Sale Promotions

Point of Sale Promotions

LOUISIANA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE & FORESTRY MIKE STRAIN DVM, COMMISSIONER Louisiana Specialty Crop Program Final Performance Report Agreement # 12-25-B-1464 January 8, 2016 CONTACTS Program Administration: Michelle Estay, Director of Commodity Promotion & Research Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry 47076 N. Morrison Blvd. Hammond, LA 70401-7308 Financial Officer: Dane Morgan, Assistant Commissioner Office of Management & Finance Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry P.O. Box 3481 Baton Rouge, LA 70821-3481 CONTENTS Abstract ......................................................................................................... 2 Project One..................................................................................................... 2 Project Two .................................................................................................... 7 Project Three .................................................................................................. 52 Project Four………………………………………………………………… 65 Project Five…………………………………………………………………. 76 Project Six………………………………………………………………….. 84 1 PROGRAM OVERVIEW The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF) was awarded $351,115.72 in funding for the FY 2012 Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP). LDAF implemented projects to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops throughout the state. Louisiana’s projects focused on programs working to inform consumers of the availability of Louisiana specialty crops, where they can be purchased for increased sales and consumption, specific specialty crop research to improve pest management and molecular analysis to assist in crop development and yield, and the study and promotion of Louisiana landscape plants. These projects were chosen for their importance to Louisiana’s specialty crop industries and to help add money into the local economy. LDAF projects were designed to improve the competitiveness of Louisiana’s specialty crops and educate the consumer. LDAF staff monitored each project by requiring quarterly activity reports and maintaining periodic phone calls, site visits and email update discussions. All invoicing and grant fund payments were completed. PROJECT ONE: Consumer Awareness Campaign to Promote Buying Fresh Local Specialty Crop Produce Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry Project Summary This project’s focus was to market to the consuming public as to the availability of specialty crops in Louisiana and educate them on how easy it is to prepare and purchase Louisiana grown specialty crops. This project to promote buying fresh specialty crops, built on a prior year grant in which a rolling billboard was developed and constructed to promote and encourage consumers to eat fresh, local specialty crop produce. This promotion used a unique technique to reach consumers in their local areas by way of a traveling billboard that could be reused continuously at fairs and festivals, as well as, other venues throughout Louisiana. This project built on the initial investment and activities by using the same rolling billboard and attending additional events reaching additional consumers in numerous parishes throughout Louisiana to promote and encourage consumers to eat fresh, local specialty crop as well as increase public awareness of the nutritional value of enjoying fresh, great tasting specialty crops and their availability. The rising costs of radio, print, and commercial advertising has continued to increase over recent years. This makes it extremely hard to gain market saturation of messaging with limited dollars. The project provided LDAF the opportunity to reach consumers in mass numbers economically in a new memorable way. 2 Project Approach Using the previously construct rolling billboard LDAF staff met to determine the events that would be scheduled throughout Louisiana in years 1, 2 and 3. LDAF staff scheduled, registered for and participated in 21 parades to reach consumers with our specialty crop message. During this process, it was determined that since the message was to eat healthy, fresh specialty crop produce, when it was possible to purchase fresh produce in season, we would pass out Louisiana specialty crops which included satsumas, oranges, cabbage, potatoes etc. During other times of the year collateral materials designed with our messaging and website information was distributed to drive the public to our website for more information and recipes. The resulting viewer website visits were used to measure the effects of the promotional campaign efforts. LDAF staff worked to develop the promotional collateral materials with messaging placement. Materials were purchased. It was determined that much of the artwork and messaging that was created during the prior year grant project could be utilized to develop the needed items for this project’s activities; therefore, the dollars budgeted for an advertising agency was deemed unnecessary. The funds reserved for this expense was utilized to purchase additional materials to reach the consuming public in attendance at the events, which was a larger number than anticipated. LDAF monitored website analytics reports prior to or post events to determine the activity driven to the site as a result of the project activities. Goals and Outcomes Achieved The objective of the program was to conduct a consumer awareness campaign to promote consumption of fresh local specialty crops throughout Louisiana utilizing the rolling billboard in outdoor marketing efforts. This was accomplished. There were two main goals for this project. The first goal was to attend at least 15 fair/festival parades and/or events during the three years of this project. The target was met and exceeded with the attendance of and participation in 21 events. Parades/festivals attended were the Washington Parish Fair 2012, Kentwood Mardi Gras 2013, Strawberry Festival 2013, Kenilworth Independence Parade 2013, St. Tammany Parish Fair 2013, Washington Parish Fair 2013, Cracklin’ Festival 2013, Natchitoches Christmas Parade 2013, Livonia Carnival Parade 2014, Strawberry Festival 2014, Tangipahoa Parish Fair 2014, Louisiana Cattle Festival 2014, Louisiana Cotton Festival 2014, Washington Parish Fair 2014, Natchitoches Christmas Festival 2014, Livonia Carnival Parade 2015, Strawberry Festival 2015, Irish, Italian, Islenos Parade 2015, Ruston Peach Parade 2015, Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, and Louisiana Sugarcane Festival 2015. The second goal was to increase consumer awareness of the availability of and the benefits of purchasing and consuming fresh local specialty crops through messaging and driving the public to the Louisianagrown.com website to increase interest and knowledge of where to purchase from local producers and gain access to different recipes on how to prepare specialty crops. The goal was to measure success by increasing website visit movement after the events by 20%. Those visits would be compared to pre or post week visits to determine the increase or lack of increase. Using the website visit data, comparing the weeks pre/post parade hits to those right after the parade 3 event, it was determined that the 20% goal was reached. When averaging all event results, there was an average of 30% increase measured for the three year project. We deem this project a tremendous success. LDAF has plans to continue this consumer awareness promotional avenue into the future. Fair/Festival Event Date Measurable Increase (i)/Decrease (d) Washington Parish Fair October 17, 2012 6% (i) Kentwood Mardi Gras January 26, 2012 59% (i) Strawberry Festival April 13, 2013 41% (i) Kenilworth Independence Day July 3, 2013 90% (i) St. Tammany Pair Fair September 27, 2013 17% (i) Washington Parish Fair October 16, 2013 32% (i) Cracklin’ Festival November 9, 2013 36% (i) Natchitoches Christmas Parade December 7, 2013 3% (d) Livonia Carnival Parade March 2, 2014 35% (i) Strawberry Festival April 12, 2014 20% (i) Tangipahoa Parish Fair October 3, 2014 27% (i) Louisiana Cattle Festival October 11, 2014 11% (i) Louisiana Cotton Festival October 12, 2014 11% (i) Washington Parish Fair October 15, 2014 25% (i) Natchitoches Christmas Parade December 6, 2014 47% (i) Livonia Carnival Parade February 15, 2015 3% (i) Strawberry Festival April 11, 2015 68% (i) St. Bernard Irish, Italian, Islenos Parade April 12, 2015 68% (i) Ruston Peach Parade June 27, 2015 15% (i) Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival September 6, 2015 34% (i) Louisiana Sugarcane Festival September 27, 2015 9% (d) Project’s Average 30.1% (increase) Increase Measured 4 Beneficiaries This project benefited all specialty crop producers in Louisiana as consumer awareness was increased. Louisiana’s 3,223 vegetable farmers, 85 sweet potato farmers, 272 citrus growers and other numerous strawberry, watermelon, fig, blackberry, blueberry, and peach producers. Louisiana consumers exposed to the promotion efforts and educational information related to consuming fresh specialty crop produce benefited. Using attendance records, more than 300,000 were directly reached at events with countless other extended family members being impacted by the exposure the consumer awareness messaging acquired by their family members, by additional free media coverage and also through access to the LouisianaGrown.com website. Lessons Learned We learned that this project created an extreme amount of buzz. Extra free media coverage was realized due to this novel promotional technique. Social media coverage of the rolling billboard

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