CHALLENGE: Cut Through A Crowded Marketplace
Located in Wenatchee, Washington, Stemilt is one of the world’s largest apple growers and distributors. When it launched a new apple variety, Rave®, it was competing with more than 2,500 existing varieties, including those branded by competitors. To be successful, Rave needed to garner consumer attention and sales in a short seasonal four-week availability window.
Client
SERVICES
Content Creation
Design and Production
Reached through Media Coverage
Pop-Up Shop Visitors
Increase in Website Sessions
STRATEGY: A Pop-up Apple Shop
In looking at which “new releases” turn heads, we narrowed in to the consumer technology sector for inspiration, where headlines are abundant with product launches. And, with our physical product sharing a name with a certain tech giant known for piquing press and consumer interest, we devised a plan: a covert “apple” pop-up shop in the heart of the Big Apple.
As the anchor to the campaign, we riffed off another famous company with a fruit as its name, and created another type of “apple store” in New York City.
A sleek white interior and lots of open space let the apples shine, and provided Stemilt with a platform to not only tell its brand story, but to celebrate and raise awareness for its latest “release” Rave.
To support the event and general Rave launch we implemented a multi-faceted communications campaign including media relations, influencer seeding, third-partner content partnerships, social media and digital marketing content.
RESULTS: BUSHELS OF VISIBILITY
Our tongue-in-cheek approach worked. A facetious sneak-peek article by the Verge got the ball rolling, and we soon found the pop-up shop in headlines from MSN to Entrepreneur. Consumers loved the clever campaign and the buzz drove massive foot-traffic to the pop-up shop, where visitors amplified our reach via their own social media posts and word-of-mouth. Soon, Rave apples were on the tip of everyone’s tongues, literally and figuratively.
More than 2,000 curious visitors came through the pop-up shop’s doors in three days. That parlayed into a branded impression reach of the shop’s location to more than 20,000 people.
Media and influencer outreach and product sends resulted in 100+ pieces of coverage in outlets such as The Verge, Taste of Home, Tasting Table and 425 magazine, reaching more than 1B readers.
The overarching campaign, including social media ads and posts, newsletters, and media coverage resulted in more than 5,000 sessions on the Stemilt website, up from 258 sessions the month prior.