Marketing Third Party Labels to Consumers

Marketing Third Party Labels to Consumers

Best practices to leverage certifications at the retail shelf

Certifications go a long way to assure consumers and B2B customers of product quality, brand value and commitment to trust. Third party labels or trust marks, like USDA Certified Organic, Non-GMO Project Verified, Fair Trade Certified or Global Animal Partnership Animal Welfare Certified, are growing. According to the New Hope Network’s NEXT Trends Database, there is a 34% growth in the number of food and beverage products earning certifications. Similarly, data collected from Natural Products Expo 2019 reveals that 78% of new food and beverage products launched carried one or more certification type, and half of all food and beverage products exhibited carried two or more certification types.

I’ve conducted shopper research and manage public relations for labeling programs. As a result, I’ve created some recent thought leadership content on the topic of marketing third party labeling programs to consumers. See the links below, including a podcast and some articles, along with one slide from my presentation during a speaking engagement at the 2019 SupplySide West Show in Las Vegas. Whether you work directly for a labeling program or are a brand that has earned certifications, you’ll likely find some insights below to help your consumer marketing program.

Insights on certifications & labeling programs

• Natural Products Insider | Get more from your third party certifications www.naturalproductsinsider.com/certification/get-more-your-third-party-certifications

• Natural Products Insider | Claims and certifications: What do they mean and who cares? www.naturalproductsinsider.com/claims/claims-and-certifications-what-do-they-mean-and-who-cares

• Natural Products Insider | Exploring claims & certifications from the consumer perspective www.naturalproductsinsider.com/branding-marketing/exploring-claims-and-certifications-consumer-perspective

• Natural Products Insider Podcast | The impact of third-party certifications on shopping behaviors – podcast www.naturalproductsinsider.com/certification/impact-third-party-certifications-shopping-behaviors-podcast

How is your brand communicating that your products are better because they have third party labels?

Hungry for more? Set up a 1-hour virtual consult with Green Purse PR at →→→ www.greenpursepr.com/consult and we'll share our proprietary list of eight best practices + you'll come away with a plan to better communicate the value of your labels to consumers.

- Lisa Mabe-Konstantopoulos, Founder & CEO, Green Purse PR

Meat Marketing + Holidays

Meat Marketing + Holidays

Smart marketing programs around key selling seasons to make your meat brand irreplaceable at retail

Atkins Ranch grass fed lamb, one of the brands we conduct public relations for, and one good at leveraging its’ key holidays and seasons. This is from a past Easter promotion at Whole Foods Market.

Major holidays and seasons represent big opportunities for brands and retailers and there are a few in particular that are most relevant to the meat category. Take the most recent example, Easter. Easter is a BIG selling season for ham and lamb brands, yet every year I’m shocked at the lack of consumer marketing from many of them, big and small. Some brands are completely silent on their digital and social communications, leading up to Easter, now and in years past.

If you walk into a grocery store around Easter, or now during Pandemic times, shop for meat online, you’ll no doubt see promotions and discounts on products like spiral hams or legs of lamb, but it looks as though most brands simply leave it up to the grocery retailer to promote these to consumers. The truth is, while meat companies may be good at producing and selling meat, they are usually not good marketers. With only a few exceptions (have at look at this high end Australian butchery for inspiration,) the meat industry as a whole has a lot of room for improvement when it comes to consumer marketing. As someone who is passionate about the meat industry (only those who are doing it right — companies that raise livestock in the most natural way possible, treating animals, the land and farmers with respect, as well as being transparent with consumers,) and someone who has been working with leading meat brands around the world for several years now, I’m keen to see them all be better.

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Here’s a test you can easily do in your search engine.

Right now go to your web browser, like Google, and type in your protein cut, or holiday or season, or cooking method, + the name of your retail partners and see what search results come up. For example, type:

• “Spiral ham + Whole Foods Market,”

• “Easter lamb + Costco,”

• “Summer BBQ + Publix,”

and see what comes up in the results. If your brand is not a part of the results, mark that down as a conversation you need to work to be a part of, and possibly even lead.

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Whether it’s during a key selling season, major holiday, or just anytime throughout the year, meat brands tend to assume their retail partners will magically do the marketing work for them. The reality is however that retailers are not going to conduct marketing programs to support your brand (unless you pay them for it,) and most grocery retailers in the USA are naturally more keen to promote on their private label brands over yours.

If you are happy to play in the commodity space (and therefore be very easy to replace at any time,) maybe you don’t need to invest in marketing, but if you want to build a brand, command a premium for all the unique attributes, provenance, and certifications your product represents and stay long-term with the retail customers you already have, you must invest in consumer marketing.

If your meat brand conducts smart consumer marketing programs, like public relations or social media marketing, around key holidays (or even better, year-round,) you can provide even more value to the meat buyers at your retail customers. By being a good marketing partner to your customers, you can help ensure the longevity of your relationship. You can also help ensure that shoppers are not just buying that ham or lamb once a year at Easter, but will consider buying your meat products for other special events or perhaps on a weekly basis too. At the very least, brands should have public relations campaigns around their biggest selling seasons and holidays.

According to our shopper research, we know there are some consumers very passionate about meat, but it tends to be a pretty low-interest category for the majority of shoppers. For that reason, we need marketing programs to keep meat brands and their products top of mind. Sure, meat-eating consumers may buy meat often enough, but it’s usually not something they want to spend much time thinking about. A good meat marketing program aims to leverage all those unique attributes farmers and ranchers work so hard to create (like farm animal welfare, non-GMO, organic, pasture raised, etc) and leave consumers feeling good about their meat purchase. We know consumers that feel good about what they buy are more likely to tell others, who will also buy your products.

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What Green Purse PR’s Meat Marketing Programs Look Like

When it comes to meat marketing programs, here are just some of the tactics Green Purse PR plans and implements for our clients.

• Shopper Research

• Social Media Marketing + Advertising

• Digital Marketing

• Retailer Shopper Marketing

• Earned Media Exposure

• Paid Media Exposure

• Partner Marketing

• Influencer Marketing

• Thought Leadership Program

Each marketing program we develop is unique, depending upon a company’s budget, who their retail customers are, geographic footprint, and what what they need to accomplish. We tend to do our very best work when our clients are able to have us collaborate closely with their retail customers so we can build and implement programs that not only promote our clients brands, but also compliment the efforts of the retailers.

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Are you ready to make your meat brand irreplaceable to your retail customers?

Contact us to chat about your current programs + customers, plus how our meat marketing programs could make your brand even more successful. If you’re not yet familiar with Green Purse PR, we are a highly-specialized shopper research and public relations consultancy in Washington, DC led by Lisa Mabe-Konstantopoulos. Some of our clients have included: KeHE Distributors, Saffron Road, Meat & Livestock Australia, OBE Organic Beef, Atkins Ranch Lamb, TK Natural Lamb, Global Animal Partnership, JicaChips, Artisanal Premium Cheese, Truly Indian and Edible Arrangements International, among many others. On our call, we’ll be happy to discuss more about our meat marketing expertise and cases of success. We look forward to ‘meating’ you via phone or video conference soon. Get in touch here: www.greenpursepr.com/contact.

Photo Tour of Whole Foods Market's New Flagship Mid-Atlantic Store | McLean, Virginia

Photo Tour of Whole Foods Market's New Flagship store in the Mid-Atlantic | Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia

Whole Foods Market recently opened its new Mid-Atlantic flagship store in Tysons Corner located at McLean, Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC. Naturally, I needed to see the retailer’s ‘fanciest store yet’ as reported by The Washingtonian, and lucky for me, it’s super close by.

The new store is located at 1635 Boro Place, McLean, Virginia in The Boro, a new residential + commercial development by The Meridian Group and Kettler Inc. is designed for work, play and mingle and includes luxury residences, destination retail, and distinguished office spaces. With 70,000 square-foot, multi-level flagship store is a community gathering destination featuring a trendy food hall, cocktail bar, game area, outdoor patio and a self-service wine bar.

Wow; what a gorgeous store! Given that so much of my shopper research and public relations work focuses on Whole Foods Market, I’m very familiar with the different types of store formats across North America. The latest stores opened by Whole Foods Market have (and there have been several in the past few months,) are so much more than just a nice grocery store; they really are meant to be community gathering spaces. It’s the kind of place you could spend several hours at for not only grocery shopping, but also dining and socializing. I think this store is now one of my favorite locations (from a design, amenity & shopper journey perspective,) along with Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, Post Oak in Houston, Texas and the Gilman store in Berkeley, California.

Below is a photo tour of my first visit to the new Tysons store.

This store is HUGE and everything is just gorgeous. I conduct a lot of shopper-research based USA Market Tours for exporters from other countries and also Supermarket Tours for local embassies in Washington, DC who have visiting delegations of farmers or food industry businesspeople eager to learn more about grocery retail in the USA. I’ll now have a sparkly, new place to bring them that’s super convenient.

I spotted several kid-friendly areas around the store, including this super cute Whole Kids Club area offering free snacks for kids shopping in the store.

I love the design of this store; so bright and cheery.

I visited this store the week of November 10th, 2019, so holiday entertaining (Thanksgiving turkey promo) signage was in full effect.

Since I work a lot with the meat category, I was especially excited to see the meat department. Everything looked perfect! Note the new black window cling along the top of the meat case featuring my client, Global Animal Partnership’s new animal welfare certified label.

Spotted several of my clients’ products, including Atkins Ranch grass fed lamb, whose lamb loin chops were currently on sale for Amazon Prime Members.

Lots of turkeys already available, ahead of ‘turkey day,’ Thanksgiving. Nice to see the new Global Animal Partnership animal welfare certified label!

For all my honey industry folks, have a look at the honey range available here. For American standards, this is a wide selection of Manuka honey (see top shelf.)

Beautiful packaging!

Welcome to cheese Heaven, featuring some of the best cheese from around the world.

Upstairs is High Point, a 100-seat indoor/outdoor pub and game room offering several self-serve food options. This is the main gathering place. I visited the store during late morning, but come lunch time, this place was packed!

I spotted a mom’s group here fueling up on coffee and probably then later, wine. It’s the perfect spot to meet with friends. When the weather is warmer, the outdoor patio area has lots of seating, including children’s tables.

The food hall includes Officina, Genji Izakaya, Curiosity Doughnuts and Rappahannock Oyster Co.

Have you visited this new Whole Foods Market store, or perhaps one of the other new stores opened during 2019? What were your impressions? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts; I’m curious to know what you think.

According to WBJ Research, Whole Foods Market is the ninth-largest grocer in the greater Washington DC area, with 4.46% market share in 2018. The Tysons store is the grocery retailer’s 10th location in Northern Virginia.

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Want to drive sales of your products at Whole Foods Market?

If your products are sold in Whole Foods Market, work with Green Purse PR to better understand its shoppers and communicate with them. We conduct shopper research, as well as plan and implement PR & digital marketing campaigns targeting Whole Foods Market shoppers. Contact us here for more details.

Want to learn more about the American grocery retail landscape?

Work with us on one of our USA Market Trips or Supermarket Tours (Embassies, see this link.) Contact us here for more details.

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Curious to learn more about Whole Foods Market shoppers?

Purchase our syndicated research report, How to Win with Whole Foods Market Shoppers here. 

- Lisa Mabe-Konstantopoulos, CEO, Green Purse PR

Photo Tour of Whole Foods Market's 500th Store | Midtown Atlanta, Georgia

Photo Tour of Whole Foods Market's 500th Store | Midtown Atlanta, Georgia

While in Atlanta over Easter break, I visited the newly opened Midtown Atlanta location of Whole Foods Market. I needed to see first hand the retailer’s 500th milestone store. It’s gotten quite a lot of good publicity and features some fun, new amenities.

Located at 22 14th Street NW in Related Group’s Icon Midtown residential development, the new 70,000 square-foot, multi-level flagship store is a community gathering destination featuring four fast-casual eateries and more than 1,500 local items from 250 suppliers, many new to Whole Foods Market.

I visited early Saturday morning, the day before Easter. It was super peaceful before the crowds came to get their pre-Easter #WholeFoodsHaul on. Since it was early and I LOVE Allegro coffee (iced latte every day for me,) my first stop was Capital Commons, a cozy full-service Allegro coffee and espresso bar. They are early risers too; the cafe opens at 6 AM daily.

Below are some photos of the new Midtown store.

The fresh fruit and veg section is super colorful and pretty!

Look who I spotted on the Prime Member Deals board at the entrance of the store — our client, Atkins Ranch lamb from New Zealand! Nice to see Wellshire Farms’ ham on there as well — both meat brands are animal welfare certified by Global Animal Partnership.

Photo source: Atlanta Curbed

Huge meat department with gorgeous display on for Easter and Passover. I like to see those butcher case clings featuring Global Animal Partnership’s 10 year anniversary!

Look what’s featured front and center — Atkins Ranch leg of lamb, during its nationwide promo with Amazon Prime. Normally $9.99 USD per pound (in this region) for leg of lamb, the sale offered leg of lamb at just $6.99 USD per pound for Amazon Prime members. The team of butchers in this store made a gorgeous display of lamb!

Atkins Ranch’s retail ready lamb cuts are new to the South region of Whole Foods Market. Super convenient for shoppers who want to quickly grab and go.

I spy some good looking beef from White Oak Pastures, local to Georgia.

Check out these new meal kits, mostly with meat and some with fish, with some calling out “keto” or “paleo.” Very cool.

Here’s what you’ll find on the roof of the new store. There’s a space for games, eating and even yoga.

Photo source: Curbed Atlanta

Photo source: Curbed Atlanta

Curious to learn more about Whole Foods Market shoppers?

Download our report, How to Win with Whole Foods Market Shoppers here.

- Lisa Mabe-Konstantopoulos, CEO, Green Purse PR

You may also be interested in our blog post, What Amazon Prime Members Think About New Lower Prices at Whole Foods Market. Read it here.