Summer beef campaign in the Northeast

NEW YORK — The modern-day grocery shopping experience is a far cry from how our parents shopped for their family meals. Technology is truly changing the way we shop for food, isn’t it? You really are just a few clicks away from your groceries showing up at your door step in a matter of hours, complete with helpful meal solutions to pull off a home-cooked meal in under 30 minutes. The Beef Checkoff’s Northeast Beef Promotion Initiative (NEBPI) took advantage of several non-traditional retail marketing platforms this summer, ensuring that Northeast shoppers chose beef as the center for their summer celebratory meals.

Long gone are the coupon clipping days and instead, modern shoppers can access recipes, cooking tips and product rebates right from their smartphones. The Checkoff continues to find value in focusing on influencing the shopper’s buying decision before they step foot inside the grocery store. Ibotta, a mobile retail rebate app boasting 24 million downloads is the third most frequently used shopping app. This summer, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic shoppers had the opportunity to engage with checkoff-funded beef recipes and cooking tips, to unlock rebates on fresh beef through the Ibotta app. The campaign reached over 2,500 retail locations and the geographical reach of their footprint included the entire New England and Mid-Atlantic regions. Stores included Hannaford, Stop and Shop, Giant, Giant Food, Martin’s, Food Lion, Weis Markets and Redner’s Warehouse M arkets. The campaign included tiered beef rebates structured to target both new and existing beef users, encouraging shoppers to shift up in the beef category from ground beef to whole muscle cuts and ultimately become repeat beef purchasers. The campaign was a partnered effort between the NEBPI, the Pennsylvania Beef Council, Virginia Beef Council, Iowa Beef Industry Council and North Carolina Beef Council.

Additionally, the Beef Checkoff’s NEBPI partnered with the East Coast online retailer giant, Fresh Direct, for a 4^th of July beef burger campaign. Campaign promotional elements included a themed homepage ad featuring beef, leading up to and including the holiday weekend, a grilling landing page and shopping page featuring beef burgers. The campaign also offered run-of-site Checkoff banner ads featuring the checkoff’s “Nicely Done” artwork, select beef SKUs boosted in consumer search bars, a blog article featuring a ‘Beef. it’s What’s For Dinner’ burger recipe, a box insert, e-blasts and social media posts to further elevate the reach of the campaign.

As a result of both digital retail-focused campaigns, over 3.5 million impressions were garnered. The Ibotta campaign achieved nearly 140,000 consumer engagements which drove the sale of over 43,000 units of beef during the 5-week campaign.

Christie Brown, the NEBPI’s Director of Marketing commented at the conclusion of both campaigns, “Not only does the Checkoff have the opportunity to deepen relationships with regional retailers through these beef campaigns, but it’s also an incredible way to reach and engage with our Northeast-based consumers, all while driving beef sales at the retail level.”

–Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion & Research Board

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