CASTROVILLE, CA – Ocean Mist Farms has a lot in store to boost sales of Heirloom artichokes to their best for the peak of the season.
“During spring’s Heirloom artichoke season, we activate a multi-faceted promotional strategy that includes retail contests, radio ads in Northern California, a consumer sweepstakes, custom in-store point of sale, display bins and petal inserts,” Diana McClean, Director of Marketing for Ocean Mist Farms, said in a news release.
March marks the seasonal best for Heirloom artichokes, which the company stated is the preferred artichoke for chefs to cook with, followed by peak volume of the Castroville Heirloom crop in April. According to McClean, Ocean Mist has a number of promotional strategies in place to generate sales, including its “Easy as 1-2-3” Sweepstakes scheduled to run throughout April.
“We want to use the Easy as 1-2-3 theme to demystify the artichoke eating experience and add a fun engaging element to the process,” McClean said in the release. “We like that it gets people thinking creatively about cooking with artichokes.”
This is another part of the company’s approach - enlightening consumers of the special varieties and uses of fresh artichokes, the state vegetable of California.
Players, who must be members of the Ocean Mist Farms’ Artichoke Club, can enter each day by selecting their favorite base, mixer and herb to create a unique artichoke dip. Daily prizes will be awarded and unique dip names created to share across various social medias. Heirloom artichokes will carry a red PLU/UPC sticker to help shoppers find Ocean Mist in stores, and daily winners will be entered for the potential $1,000 grand prize.
“Artichokes can be made in countless ways, but many people use the same cooking method and dip the petals in their favorite sauce,” McClean said.
The company will send out emails to club members informing them when retailers have Heirloom artichokes on sale-specific in their market. The sweepstakes details will be provided via social media channels and petal inserts in stores across the country. The petal inserts will be placed in every other artichoke for stores that agree to carry the item and labels will be added to the company’s new clamshell packages, available specifically for spring.
