Ocean Mist Farms

Be an Artichoke Adventurer

Objective: To generate consumer awareness for Ocean Mist Farms artichokes; engage shoppers, artichoke club members and retailers nationwide; prompt purchase; increase membership in the artichoke club; and drive consumers to the company website.

Campaign: To generate awareness for the company’s fresh artichokes, Ocean Mist Farms implemented numerous activities including display and sales contests with Northern California retailers, radio ads and a nationwide new product launch. The highlight of the season was a Be an Artichoke Adventurer consumer contest targeted at Millennials to help them be bold and adventurous in the kitchen. The company also wanted to celebrate its loyal fans by allowing them to show off their artichoke culinary know-how. Home cooks were invited to upload a picture or video of themselves preparing or eating a fresh artichoke for a chance to win a trip for two to Monterey, CA, including tickets to the Annual Castroville Food & Wine Artichoke Festival.

Entries were judged on creativity of the photo or video, and how well it showcased the cook’s adventurous spirit. All entries were asked to use the hashtag #ArtiAdventurer to allow easy tracking of this promotion. The company promoted the sweepstakes with email blasts to its more than 65,000 artichoke club members, in-store signage made available to retail customers, petal inserts affixed to some artichoke petals, and digitally through its website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Results: The cooking nature of the sweepstakes encouraged fresh artichoke purchases. Retail partners and Ocean Mist Farms benefited from Be an Artichoke Adventurer, and the company gained 985 new members as a result of the contest. The combination of media outreach, in-store point-of sale, online and social media outreach delivered more than 7 million consumer impressions during the sweepstakes period. The sweepstakes winner and other participants shared their content on social media. The Facebook ads helped drive traffic to the company website. Working with influencers to generate content was excellent and helped tell the #ArtiAdventurer story by encouraging people to try cooking artichokes. And the contest winner is now an ambassador for artichokes and the company.