Walmart, Kingsford Beef Up Sampling Effort

Bentonville, Ark. — The Clorox Co.'s Kingsford has partnered with Walmart on an experiential program designed to build awareness for the mass merchant's new USDA Choice-grade beef products. Using co-branded "Mobile Brand Boxes" towed by pickup trucks, Walmart is staging grilling demonstrations in its parking lots and distributing samples to shoppers as they enter and exit stores. The program, which began in the fall of 2011, will have reached about 300 Walmart Supercenters in the Midwest and Southeast by the end of this year.The Kingsford charcoal brand was a logical partner as Walmart sought to introduce a higher quality beef. (The retailer has traditionally stocked USDA Select-grade beef.) Research showed a high correlation between fresh meat and charcoal purchases. Moreover, consumers who buy charcoal tend to prefer premium cuts of meat.While Kingsford had previously participated in co-op advertising and conducted "pop-up" grilling demos with Walmart, the mobile events create a deeper consumer engagement on a much larger scale. "Walmart saw this as a great opportunity to get the meat products into consumers' hands," says Charles Mordy, Clorox's director of shopper engagement for the Walmart team. "Nothing can replace the sensory experience of an outdoor barbecue. Consumers who have interacted with the Mobile Brand Boxes have been delighted by Walmart's meat and the overall tour experience."The custom mobile units are the brainchild of Plano, Texas-based Out Front Marketing, a joint venture between Crossmark and FLW Outdoors. The vehicles were previously used as part of Walmart co-marketing programs with Sony and The National Guard. Each unit is skinned with brand graphics, equipped with an electrical supply and staffed by trained employees from both the retailer and participating brand.Irwin Jacobs, chairman and chief executive officer of Out Front Marketing, says the outdoor grilling events are proving to be a more effective intercept than in-store demos. "Instead of getting 10% of shoppers, you're getting 100%," says Jacobs. "Nearly everyone who passes the Brand Boxes stops to engage with us in a positive way, and we've seen that in the comments that consumers have shared with us." As of March, the partners have distributed approximately 40,000 pounds of steak samples.Mordy says the choice of store locations for the program is continually being re-evaluated to maximize the truck route against traffic patterns. "We see the program as getting better as we improve our learning and generate better efficiency," he says. "We're not recording individual consumer names, but we are looking at numbers of samples given out and the individual store lift on sales of meat and charcoal." (He declined to provide specific numbers.)Kingsford will be looking for opportunities to reinforce the message of the sampling program in its marketing. Kingsford's Grilling.com website serves as a "grilling community" where consumers can find recipes, grilling experts' blogs and events. "The sights and sounds of grilling meat outdoors, and having a presence in Walmart's parking lot, is consistent with our marketing message," Mordy says. "It's not just about the benefits of grilling, but the whole grilling experience. We want to make sure that what we're doing with the events matches what we're doing in stores. For example, if we did a 'Summer Grilling at Walmart' program, we would look to see how the vehicle fits in with overall marketing. That's how you take a pilot program and bring it up to scale."Walmart's parking lots also hosted the "Walmart Choice Steak Challenge" with Kingsford and Coca-Cola. The contest searched for steak-grilling chefs in multiple cities, with shoppers voting for those chefs and sampling the steaks and Coca-Cola Zero. The Challenge was promoted on Grilling.com.

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