Tom Devine, senior partner of Quincy advertising agency Devine & Pearson, shows the web site eatturkey.com, part of the agency’s campaign to raise consumer awareness of turkey as "the perfect protein."
Year-Round Invite
Quincy ad agency enlisted to keep turkey on tables
By Steve Adams
The Patriot Ledger
Quincy
Getting consumers to think about turkey this week is the easy part.
It’s the other 51 weeks of the year that worry the National Turkey Federation, which enlisted Quincy ad agency Devine & Pearson to oversee a $3 million campaign to make consumers think of turkey as "The Perfect Protein."
The campaign portrays turkey as the optimum component of the Atkins diet, with more protein than chicken or beef and no saturated fat.
"We think we timed the market right," said Tom Devine, a senior partner at Devine & Pearson. "People were eating more protein. We wanted to get our share of the bigger pie."
The campaign began in June with the launch of an expanded web site – www.eatturkey.com - and a new logo promoting turkey as "The Perfect Protein."
Ads designed by the Quincy agency promoting the web site and displaying recipes started appearing this fall in 11 national magazines, including People and Bon Appetit.
The campaign portrays turkey as the optimum component of the Atkins diet, with more protein than chicken or beef and no saturated fat.
However, with some food industry experts proclaiming a peak in the Atkins diet’s popularity, Devine & Pearson is already shifting its strategy for future promotions.
The agency is keeping a close eye on the release early next year of the federal government’s latest set of nutrition guidelines. Amid early reports that the new version will emphasize a low- calorie diet and balanced lifestyles including regular physical activity, Devine & Pearson is researching a campaign to play up turkey as a low-calorie alternative to other types of meat.
The eatturkey.com site includes a database of 1,500 recipes. Searches can be limited by such parameters as low-carb or low-calorie. All of the recipes include a nutrition fact box in the same format as those on retail box labels.
The site also contains links to 30 cooking demonstrations by celebrity chefs such as Todd English and Ming Tsai. The site is on a pace to log 1.5 million user visits this year, Devine said.
The National Turkey Federation, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group, represents turkey farmers, processors and distributors. With per-capita turkey consumption in the U.S. flat over the past decade, the federation saw the potential for added marketing clout with a collective campaign.
"The industry decided that we could do more to raise awareness of turkey collectively than any individual brand could do," federation spokeswoman Sherrie Rosenblatt said. "We want consumers to think about turkey more often."
Next week, the trade group plans to start reviewing results from a consumer survey of the magazines’ subscribers and gauge the effectiveness of the campaign, Rosenblatt said.
"The results are very favorable," Rosenblatt said, "We’re pleased with what we have just seen."
Turning consumers on to new tastes is a niche for Devine & Pearson, whose current clients include Middleboro-based Ocean Spray Cranberries and Ken’s Salad Dressings of Marlboro. In the past, the 25-year old agency has worked on campaigns for Bell & Evans chicken and Shady Brook Farms turkey, and it designed the packaging for Hyannis-based Cape Cod Potato Chips.
Reprinted with permission from "The Patriot Ledger"
