Wish Farms' Amber Maloney Discusses the Success of the Florida Strawberry Festival and #ShareTheLoveOfBerries Campaign
PLANT CITY, FL - Wish Farms successfully saw strawberries become Florida’s star last week during Plant City’s annual Florida Strawberry Festival, attracting over 560,000 visitors and serving as a successful platform for its Rubbermaid FreshWorks™ hashtag campaign.
“We had over 600 entries in just 10 days, as well as tens of thousands of views and engagement across our social media platforms,” Wish Farms Director of Marketing, Amber Maloney, tells me. “Overall it has been a very successful grassroots campaign.”
The theme ‘Snap it. Love it. Share it. Win!’ encouraging consumers to snap a photo enjoying Wish Farms berries for a chance to win $100 + Rubbermaid® FreshWorks™ Produce Saver was promoted through several medias, including:
- Event signage
- Flyer distribution
- Video features
- Social posts
Entries were made by posting to Instagram using #ShareTheLoveOfBerries.
The festival set a great stage for Wish Farms’ brand videos, featuring the tradition, labor, and passion that goes into the company’s growing practices, garnering views from more than 4,000 people per show who attended each of the 22 concerts put on during the event, Amber says.
The most successful of the five videos, Hometown Homegrown, received 12,500 views on Facebook during the 11-day festival.
“This was our first user generated content (UGC) campaign,” Amber tells me, explaining that it is becoming a popular marketing strategy for brands across all different industries. “The idea is for brands to tap into their fan/customer base to generate authentic and original content to power their marketing message and improve engagement.”
Amber also explained that Nielson research revealed that 92% of consumers trust online content from friends and family above all other forms of brand messaging, with content from strangers coming in second and still far more than content from brands.
The winners of the photo sweepstakes, #ShareTheLoveOfBerries, were announced March 14th, with the success inspiring a follow up campaign. “We plan to launch a second follow up #ShareTheLoveOfBerries campaign, starting in April, that will run through the month of May promoting our Florida blueberry and California strawberry seasons,” Amber explains.
Wish Farms’ blueberry season is quickly approaching, so stay tuned for more updates as things get under way.
