Promoting Potatoes to Linda
Promoting Potatoes to Linda. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
Knowing who your customers are is important and the United States Potato Board has been working to identify and market their products to their target customer known as Linda. Laura Slavec, Account Director with the Sterling Rice Group says the information they have been gathering is being put to good use.
SLAVEC: First of all out current campaign is called “Peel Back the Truth” and it’s all about debunking the myths around potatoes saying they are very healthy, they are a lot of nutritional benefits. From this new research we are really able to evolve that message and now focus our advertising on inspiring Linda and really enticing her with these new ideas on ways to prepare potatoes.
Slavec says they know that Linda is a busy person and wants something quick and easy
SLAVEC: We know that she is looking for meals and recipe ideas that her whole family will love. So we really want to focus on showing things, potato preparations that everyone is going to love. But they are slightly different than the way she’s currently preparing potatoes so just a twist on the traditional that’s going to get her excited and get her to think about potatoes in different ways.
Healthy food choices are important to Linda as well.
SLAVEC: Secondly we also want to really elevate the health benefits of potatoes by leveraging the fresh and natural cues. Linda believes that potatoes are fresh and natural however she thinks of them in the context of rice and pasta and against rice and pasta that’s where potatoes really win, they’re fresh and natural. So we can really leverage the fresh and natural aspects of potatoes to elevate the health halo so Linda thinks of potatoes as being much healthier than rice and pasta overall.
The goal is all this research and marketing is really something quite simple
SLAVEC: Finally we want to really entice her again with these quick and easy recipes that can be prepared in 30 minutes so then in that way we are enticing her with these amazing recipe ideas that are a little different than what she’s thought of, they look healthy and they can be prepared quickly which is what everything she’s looking for. And hopefully by doing all of that she will prepare potatoes at least one more time per week in place of rice or pasta.
Research shows that most people consider and think of potatoes as a side dish.
SLAVEC: Honestly she’s preparing them very traditionally right now. She’s doing them mashed, baked, roasted, fried. She’s really not getting that creative so we still feel there’s a lot of potential with potatoes as a side dish and just some different preparations and with different varieties. So we’re actually still focusing our message on using potatoes as a side dish at dinnertime.
That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
