By: Allison Febrey, Assistant, Health & Wellness/FMI Foundation/Food & Product Safety
Associated Wholesale Grocers, Inc. (AWG) participated in National Family Meals Month™ (NFMM) for the past few years primarily utilizing its Best Choice brand. This year, AWG’s Grocers’ promoted (NFMM) through all of their brands (Best Choice, Clearly Organic, Superior Selections, and Always Save), with a goal of educating consumers and employees about family meals and increasing engagement with the brands’ websites and social media. The brands made a splash by focusing their promotion on an exciting photo contest and supporting that with messaging about family meals.
The Family Meals Photo Fun Contest took place September 5th through September 27th. The winner was announced September 28th. To participate, customers submitted a photo of them enjoying a family meal and the winner received a product giveaway. AWG promoted this contest through its brands various social media platforms, websites, and marketing emails. As a result of their efforts, more than 140 people submitted photos in the contest.
To educate consumers, AWG shared the benefits of family meals through a series of blog posts. The blog series garnered more than 450 page views and drove engagement to their family meals website. AWG sought to spread the message of the benefits of family meals to employees by leveraging internal communication channels.
Beyond promoting family meals through its brands, AWG created content for its retailers to share. They sent messaging to AWG retailers informing them of the campaign so they could pass along materials to their consumers and shared print pieces with retailers to promote in their weekly circular.
Congratulations to Associated Wholesale Grocers on their Gold Plate Award winning National Family Meals Month campaign! Now is the perfect time to start planning for National Family Meals Month. There is no fee to participate. Go to www.FMIFamilyMeals.com for ideas on how you and your company can join the movement. Learn more about the Gold Plate Awards.
