Conagra Brand | Ruoxi Wang

Marketing Campaign

Company: Conagra Brand

Focus on Odom's Tennessee Pride Product ('OTP')

Executive Summary

For Odom’s Tennessee Pride, this is an awareness campaign for Chicago and the greater Chicagoland area. In the research, we have found that there is no clear leader in the sausage market in this area. Combined with Chicago being a top 5 city for sausage consumption, it being the leading city for millennial generation growth, and millennials being the leading demographic for consuming breakfast sausage, we have determined that there is a great opportunity in Chicago for Odom’s Tennessee Pride.

Based on the information that the Conagra Brand Manager gave us, the product is strong among those who try it, which is the reason behind an awareness campaign that features digital and traditional media. Along with this is a planned grassroots effort embedded in the summer months, where Chicago shines its brightest and welcomes 54.1 million tourists. This is an ideal time to grow the brand.

Our comprehensive marketing plan includes traditional advertising in the forms of local TV commercials, billboards, Out-of-Home Chicago Transit Authority advertising, and Odom’s Tennessee Pride SWAG (or memorabilia). Digitally, we plan on using Google AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. For our grassroots effort, we will be utilizing a food truck service to be apart of Chicago summer festivals to directly connect and share our product with consumers.

Odom’s Tennessee Pride

Odom’s Tennessee Pride (OTP) was founded in 1943 by Doug Odom, just outside Nashville, Tennessee. Odom’s always pursue to provide fresh, high-quality pork, with the same big, flavorful spice blend for customers. The company still takes pride in producing real country sausage featuring Doug’s original secret recipe. Odom’s Tennessee Pride is a strong and growing brand in the central and southeastern states. The company currently ships 64 active SKUs to 66 different retailers. 26 UPCs make up 90% of OTP’s volume and 5 recipes make up 85% of OTP volume. Currently, they offer a variety of breakfast segments across both refrigerated and frozen categories. For the breakfast sausage, the company has sausage rolls (pork), cooked patties and links (pork, turkey) and uncooked patties and links (pork, turkey). They also produce breakfast sandwiches includes biscuits (sausage, turkey, chicken) and croissants. This campaign book will focus on the analysis of breakfast sausage.

Situation Analysis

Industry

According to Highbeam Business, there were 1,291 establishments in the United States feeding the sausage and prepared meat industry. These businesses employ approximately 63,336 workers. The top five flavors are: regular, original, mild, maple, and hot. While customers appreciate options, according to Nielsen data, pork is the meat of choice and dominates the breakfast sausage market.

Breakfast sausage can be formed and packaged in a variety of ways.

Based on Nielsen’s breakfast sausage data, links are the most popular breakfast sausage form, which is 40%. Roll form is not far behind, which is 38%. Patties are in the top three, but do not make a strong showing, which is 17%.

Competition

Jimmy Dean claims the largest share of the breakfast sausage market. They are not only boasts a full line of breakfast sausage products, but also the most popular product in the market. They offer a single natural option, an all-natural, regular flavor, pork sausage chub. Other top market share holders, Johnsonville and Bob Evan’s, offer no natural option. OTP offers all natural, fully cooked, turkey breakfast sausage links and patties.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Communication Goals

Our goal is to raise awareness of Odom’s Tennessee Pride Sausage with Chicago Millennials.

Generate 1,000,000 impressions through different channels of media

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Create a Social Media Presence

Raise brand awareness of OTP by 20% by the end of 2018

Key Research Insights

Millennials are leading sales in Breakfast sausage
Chicago has the highest population growth of Millennials
Millennials feel at least somewhat confident in managing the majority of their adult tasks
No brand leader in Illinois
54.1M People visit Chicago at least once in the summer

Target Audience

The target market is consumers, age 22-30, that are are growing up and entering their first stage of adulthood. These people like to cook and try to create new dishes. They are confident with their adult responsibilities, but they could still use reminders that they should be proud of their accomplishments. Millennials lead sales in breakfast sausage and live primarily in the Chicagoland area, which has the highest population rate for millennials in the U.S.

Campaign Principles

Our Central Communications Platform is “Take Pride In.” This statement will be used internally and externally as a slogan that will not only guide our decisions, but is intended to evoke positive feelings around the brand and in one’s life. OTP is known for high quality products with real ingredients and a great recipe. These facts are what guide our CCP. We look to communicate that message, showing that we take pride in what we do and inviting the consumer to join us, not only in our pursuit of great sausage products, but all other endeavors. “Take Pride In” can appear in many forms, being very versatile and able to work in a variety of media and even be posed as question when left blank. Overall, we intend on making high quality and pride synonymous with OTP.

Positioning Statement

At Odom’s Tennessee Pride, we take our name seriously. We’re proud of our product and the real ingredients that go in it. We invite you join us and Take Pride In everything you do.

Social Media

Our social media approach focuses on reestablishing Facebook and creating a Twitter page. We hope to increase our follower base by 20%. These platforms will be key to post our own media and share the events we are taking part in for summer festivals.

Our Facebook and Twitter Ads will target millennials within a 40 mile radius of Chicago. They will be reaching about 60,000 people a day for our 5 months of running the campaign. The content will include: Our recipes placed in working settings with accompanied link to the website, details on events we will be apart of, as well as earned media from our new installations/ads.

The Snapchat filter (bottom left) will be used at all of our festivals. Variations of the filter include: the logo (bottom), a dancing patty/breakfast sandwich, and a “I Take Pride in ___” filter where people can hand write the answer along with the user’s accompanied content.

TV Spot

This TV spot will feature real millennials of Chicago, and Tennessee Pride will ask them one simple question; What do you take pride in? Their answers will range from finishing college, starting a new job, getting a promotion, etc. We will have them write their answers on a blue and white gingham structure located in Millennium Park. This ad will play on Hulu, Facebook, and during the WGN news. This event will give Tennessee Pride a handful of responses that can be used for multiple ads as to not have the same ad become repetitive.

According to a report from Mintel, millennials are getting most of their news from cable news channels, making WGN a natural fit. We will host a cooking segment on the show featuring Tennessee Pride’s various flavors of sausage. The segment will show how millennials can take back the kitchen and take pride in their cooking! The featured recipes will show millennials ways to cook for the week, creating a quick meal after work, and budget recipes for hosting friends. The segment will be sponsored by Tennessee Pride and will feature the Take Pride In TV spot after the segment is over. All the recipes shown on air will be available on Tennessee Pride’s website.

Spotify

Spotify has almost 100 million active users and less than half of them pay for unlimited to block the ads. Nearly 60 million use the free ad-supported service for their daily music needs which gives Odom’s Tennessee Pride an opportunity to reach millions of users. OTP will create special ads for Spotify as well as create a sponsored playlist.

Billboard

We chose to incorporate more out-of-home advertising to speak to our on-the-go target market. We would display 20 of these types of billboards, each one with different professions personified with sausages. Fifteen will be displayed on busy highways as people drive to and from work in the Chicagoland area. The other 5 will be scattered throughout Chicago, in neighborhoods where there is a higher concentration of millennials.

We want to tie in the different personas of millennials through comical sausage personas. We don’t want to limit anyone from enjoying our sausage on their way to take pride in their work, traditional or unconventional.

Tote Bags

Millennials are some of the most environmentally conscious people. In addition to Chicago’s bag tax, millennials are also looking to save money. Millennials can take pride in their shopping with Tennessee Pride branded tote bags. These bags will be given out free out of our food truck and other out of home events. This will help initially start building brand awareness and launch the campaign.

Food Track

For OTP to permeate the Chicago market, we felt that a grassroots and direct to consumer effort was needed. During the summer months, Chicago is a tourist destination, regionally and nationally. Part of the draw is the unique neighborhood festivals that showcase the unique history and in some cases, ethnic heritage of Chicago’s neighborhoods. Some, such as the Windy City Smoke Out, are bonafide, large scale events with famous artists and a good deal of food options while others, such as the Irish American Heritage Festival in the Albany Park Neighborhood draws less, but is still a fantastic opportunity to showcase the OTP brand and offer our food to Chicagoans and visitors alike.

We plan to purchase, design, outfit, and run a food truck that can be entered in these festivals. Not only will it serve as a moving advertisement with our “Take Pride In” campaign, it will also allow us to offer products directly to the market we’re striving to become number one.

CTA Bus Shelter Display

Based off the high influx of CTA traffic, we thought it would be best to catch millennial commuters in the moment they start their day… and when they end it. The bus shelter display on State and Lake is seen by countless commuters each day. The moment of receptivity during the morning hours is key to when our target market is hungry for breakfast. However, their return from their commute is also a crucial moment of receptivity, when they may be on their way home and are making a grocery list.

The top of the shelter will have a gingham print table cloth, along with a rustic, vintage Tennessee Pride sign at the top. The shelter will have ads displayed like the ones below. Each person is someone we may have spoken to when completing our commercial. To make things personal, with the individual’s permission, we personalized the sausage patty that was right for them. This is meant to stop and see what these individuals have to do with sausage and their daily lives. All ads will portray how these millennials take pride in their mornings, and how Odom’s Tennessee Pride can be apart of that.