Two poultry marketing campaigns launched this year are looking to change minds – and consumption habits.
The turkey industry introduced Think Turkey in May while Egg Farmers of Canada (EFC) rolled out Eggs Anytime in August. The goal of both initiatives is to increase consumption by reframing how Canadians view what these industries produce.
While we covered Think Turkey when it first launched, as a refresher it’s a collaboration between Turkey Farmers of Canada, the Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council and turkey primary processing sector members. It’s the first national, bilingual campaign to boost turkey consumption since 2004.
A five-year, integrated program, it targets primary meal planners and urges them to ‘Think Turkey’ at times when they’d usually consume another source of protein. For instance, with the message “What’s your beef with turkey?”, one ad suggests swapping a beef patty for turkey when consumers are in the mood for a burger. Another ad prompts consumers to pick turkey over chicken.
EFC is taking a similar approach. Eggs Anytime, which combines television, online and social media and runs into 2020, builds on a 2017 campaign that presented a “new” kind of egg – the weekday egg. That initiative focused on moving people from consuming eggs for breakfast on the weekend to any day of the week. Eggs Anytime expands that to any time of day as well. The campaign uses bold and funny ads to show Canadians it’s normal to have eggs for lunch and dinner.
To take a deeper dive into the strategy behind Eggs Anytime, I spoke to Judi Bundrock, EFC’s chief marketing and communications officer. Firstly, she pointed out that the industry has experienced phenomenal growth for more than a decade. Just between 2017 and 2018, the average Canadian ate 13 more eggs.
There’s also been a significant increase on the retail side as well.
Still, Bundrock sees room for growth. While she’s pleased with the fact that Canadians consume 250-plus eggs per year, she notes that people in countries such as Mexico, Japan and China are in the 300 to 350 annual egg consumption range.
One thing these countries have in common – consumers see eggs as more than just a traditional breakfast food; they’re viewed as a high-quality protein that can be part of a varied diet and consumed throughout the day. With its latest campaign, EFC wants to bring more Canadians around to that way of thinking to get closer to the 300 to 350 eggs consumed range.
While it’s targeting all Canadians, Eggs Anytime is focused on one group in particular – a segment of the population EFC calls the ‘light buyers’. These are the 40 per cent of households research identified that eat less than a dozen eggs per month, typically on the weekend and only for breakfast.
Bundock and her colleagues set out to understand this segment.
“What we found out was the issue is not around affordability or awareness of the high quality of eggs,” the marketing expert says. “For some reason in their mind there were issues around time constraints limiting their ability to prepare eggs.” In short, they viewed cooking eggs as a time-consuming, complex process.
Thus, EFC is reaching out to these people – plenty of recipes in hand – to explain that there are many things they could do with eggs that range from simple to more complicated dishes.
To evaluate the campaign, Bundock says her team will continue to measure increases in consumption and retail sales. Will Eggs Anytime be able to convert a significant number of ‘light buyers’? Time will tell.
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