I Tried My First Sardine Sampling Program

Cultural Insight

Despite being a known nutritional powerhouse, sardines are a polarizing food — most consumers love to hate them — or are afraid to even taste them for the first time.

What I Did

Identified opportunity to create new sardine consumers and drive sales by leveraging the fear factor. By introducing this huge and skeptical audience to sardines through an engaging I Tried My First Sardine sampling program at consumer events, first-time samplers accepted the challenge in record numbers, and were awarded an exclusive I Tried my First Sardine button as a light-hearted reward for facing that fear.

The use of humor and spontaneity increased the willingness of consumers to engage with the activation.

How It Went

Apparently, nearly everyone does like sardines -- but they just don’t know it.    

With roughly 99% approval rating across all channels where the challenge was activated, I tapped into a huge market of consumers who embraced this novel source of protein. Most samplers reported that in overall taste, Wild Planet sardines were akin to tuna. Fears were promptly busted, and new sardine consumers were born.

The high acceptance level correlated to YOY sales growth for Wild Planet sardines, prompting line extensions, creation of an exclusive 50 Ways to Eat a Sardine cookbook, and the implementation of the I Tried My First Sardine program within the Registered Dietitian channel to spotlight nutritional benefits and drive subsequent recommendation to downstream consumers.

Mom’s Meet: Albacore Tuna Sampling Program

Cultural Insight

The Mom demographic controls 93% of food purchases, and 75% of moms identifying themselves as the primary household shopper.  With an objective of driving household penetration, this was a strategically critical demographic for Wild Planet to target, convert, and nurture.

What I Did

I created a long term strategic partnership with Moms Meet --  a leading digital community reaching 2 million moms – to develop a series of turnkey Albacore Tuna group sampling activations led by brand-educated Mom Ambassadors. This effort put tuna and sardines in the mouths of up to 80,000 moms each year.

The success of the program was driven by laser-focused consumer targeting supported by a customized, highly rated sample kit which included generous product allotments, collateral educational materials and branded kids’ activity books – all designed to deliver effective brand messaging to the mom audience sampling the product.

How It Went

Through seven campaigns, 99% of samplers across grocery, natural, mass and club channels rated Wild Planet Albacore Tuna as Excellent or Good.

Approximately 98% of respondents indicated they Definitely or Probably would purchase Wild Planet Albacore Tuna following the sampling.

Purchase frequency for this demographic proved to be higher than overall category performance.

The campaigns generated more than 3,700 four- and five-star reviews.

Subsequent sampling campaigns for Wild Planet Sardines leveraged the high brand sentiment achieved through tuna sampling campaigns and drove 1,500 five-star reviews for sardines – an historically polarizing fish.

Source: 2021 Moms Meet members; www.momsmeet.com

RD Sardine Sampling & Influencer Program

Cultural Insight

The 75,000-strong Registered Dietitian community is pivotal in guiding consumers towards healthier food choices, providing opportunity to create a strategic relationship to build brand awareness and drive sales.  A two-step approach would not only educate RDs about Wild Planet’s nutrient-dense product line, but provide a platform to communicate this learning to patients and clients in an effort to drive brand awareness and sales.

What I Did

Created an educational campaign — SARDINES: The Healthiest Food You Are (Probably) Not Eating — to reinforced the strong nutritional benefits with a goal of spurring trial and inclusion of sardines into Registered Dietitians’ own diets.

Delivered this message via a targeted email campaign, an influencer program and robust sampling at RD trade events.

Created and distributed an RD Tool Kit containing product samples and a customizable in-office sampling program with educational material with coupons for in-office distribution to clients and patients.

How It Went

Wild Planet Sardine messaging was amplified via organic social within the RD community resulting in significant engagement and brand evangelism.

This two-tiered effort effectively drove downstream consumer trial and brand awareness due to the valued recommendation by Dietitians to their own patients.

Review-Driving Sampling Program: Social Nature

Cultural Insight

As 95% of consumers rely on online reviews to make informed, confident buying decisions, opportunity existed to develop a program capable of driving thousands of reviews to the brand website - essential for SEO — through a targeted sampling program which drove in-store sales as an adjacent benefit.

What I Did

Established a partnership with Social Nature, an online sampling platform offering access to a highly curated, opt-in audience of 300K natural shoppers. Through the sampling platform, I delivered 13,000 Free Product and BOGO store coupons to sampling participants who were obliged to provide online product reviews post-sampling.   

How It Went

Nearly 7,000 reviews were provided by samplers for inclusion on Wild Planet website, as well as on the Social Nature website. In addition to reviews, the sampling audience delivered robust UGC to leverage across the brand’s social landscape. 

In-store redemption sequence of Free Product and BOGO product coupons was key to establishing buying pattern at retail for samplers.

Sampler screening delivered consumer research insights valued at nearly $24K, including frequency of category purchase, competitive brands purchased, most important attributes and other data points.

The brand realized a database increase approaching 7K new, motivated consumers — valued at $10K+

Overall review program featured ability to syndicate reviews across wide range of retailer sites indefinitely, further driving SEO and brand awareness.