Picnic in the Park campaign

Kroger Foods Campaign: Picnic in the park
By 1998, Yves Veggie Cuisine was well-positioned as the #1 brand of refrigerated meat alternatives in Canada where it had virtually created the category. In the United States, it was one of the top brands in the natural foods market but had not yet achieved mainstream recognition. The company teamed up with grocery giant Kroger Food Stores and asked Whalebone Productions to help launch Kroger’s new whole foods department.

Strategy and execution
Focusing on a summer picnic theme, Whalebone Productions developed a playful, upbeat campaign that highlighted the irony of finding typical fast food products - wieners, burgers and deli slices - in the produce section of a major supermarket.

We came up with a tag line, “This ain’t no ordinary hot dog!” that played up the distinction between Yves Veggie Cuisine’s all vegetable protein products and its meat protein competitors. Initial promotions consisted of two teasers in the form of 24-piece photo jigsaw puzzles that added to the playfulness of the campaign.
Whalebone carried the theme and tag line into the stores through material that educated Kroger’s produce managers and store personnel about Yves Veggie Cuisine’s products and supported the in-store promotions with posters, balloons, buttons and a demo booth.

Results
As a direct result of the Picnic in the Park campaign, Yves Veggie Cuisine sales in the targeted market area rose 600 percent during the promotional period and later settled into a lasting 13 per cent increase above the pre-promotion average. The campaign also generated several newspaper articles and television interviews.

Candlestick Park, the Paul McCartney concert, and winning several prominent business awards helped propel Yves Veggie Cuisine into the limelight. The stamp of credibility and the resulting media coverage increased sales and product awareness. The stories were picked up by newspapers across North America where the company received considerable media coverage, from The Globe and Mail in Canada to the San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Mother Jones Magazine and American Airlines Magazine, to name just a few.
Yves Veggie Cuisine also secured crucial distribution in major supermarket chains across North America. Its veggie burger is now on the menu as the new McVeggie Burger in MacDonald’s chain of fast-food restaurants across Canada. The company’s sales rose from $2 million in 1992 to $75 million in 2000 when it was sold to the Hain Celestial Group.

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