Nevada Beef Council CHECKOFF NEWS
As the summer months waned, the Nevada Beef Council and Beef Checkoff-funded Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. program wrapped up a busy few months of unique campaigns targeting Nevada consumers with beef messaging and promotions. For Nevada beef producers, these campaigns leveraged the dollar-per-head Beef Checkoff by combining state-specific efforts launched by the NBC with national campaigns that also focused on Silver State consumers.
As one example, the United We Steak campaign, which wrapped up over Labor Day weekend, celebrated the shared tradition of grilling steaks over the summer, as well as unique aspects of each state when it comes to grilling. The campaign came to life with an interactive map of the United States made from 50 hand-cut steaks in the shape of each state. Over the summer months, advertisements were pushed through digital and social media platforms, as well as through traditional media platforms such as radio, and video platforms including YouTube and Connected TV – all in an effort to inspire Americans to grill up their favorite beef meal no matter where they live.
The national components of the campaign exceeded expectations even before it concluded, with a full analysis of all campaign metrics still pending. As of early September, the campaign had resulted in over 326 million total impressions, far exceeding the goal of 270 million. There were also over 83 million video views, and audio ads reached over 29 million listeners.
Here locally, the NBC further leveraged this campaign through state-specific advertising elements, offers for cash-back rebates on beef products, and a sweepstakes targeting Nevada consumers offering a chance to win one of two Traeger grills. The cash-back offer was a $2 rebate for any beef cut, one pound or larger, available through the mobile app Ibotta® – a particularly compelling offer for shoppers at a time when retail food prices remained higher than usual.
The Nevada campaign resulted in additional media impressions and engagement with consumers, supplementing the advertisements being deployed as part of the national campaign. In Nevada specifically, broadcast media impressions surpassed 1.7 million, with nearly 1 million additional impressions through other campaign elements, including streaming audio and banner ads across a variety of online platforms, ads airing via “OTT” television (which refers to “over the top” film and television content provided via a high-speed Internet connection rather than a cable or satellite provider), and mobile geo-fencing ads pushed out through a variety of smart phone apps.
What’s more, the Ibotta offer resulted in over 550,000 brand impressions, 12,908 “Add to List” events (instances where the shopper took the additional action through the app of watching a video, unlocking the offer, and adding beef to their shopping list), and 7,235 offers redeemed at Nevada retailers.
Of those who took advantage of the offer, 89.9 percent were female, and 10.1 percent were male, with the age ranges of 35-44 (34.8%) and 25-34 (28.7%) being the top age groups.
One advantage of the app is that any participating Nevada retailer is included, which means the NBC doesn’t have to limit such opportunities to a small number of retailers. For this campaign, the retailers that saw the highest redemption rates on beef products through the Ibotta app included Walmart at 22.9%, Smith’s at 21.9%, Albertsons at 13.1% and Costco at 9.6%. Other retailers in the top ten included Walmart Grocery (Walmart’s online grocery ordering and pick-up service), WinCo Foods, Sam’s Club, Raley’s, Von’s and Army Military Commissary.
As the United We Steak campaign concluded on a state and national level, the NBC team was pleased with the overall results and engagement. But the efforts to reach Nevadans with positive beef messaging didn’t end with this effort.
Also through the summer months, the Beef Checkoff-funded Western U.S. State Campaign was deployed, which worked to disseminate beef recipe content to consumers in western states from early June through early August. Given that consumers in these states have a higher propensity for choosing meat substitute options, this campaign worked to encourage consumers to choose BEEF instead for their meals. Overall, the campaign performed very well – consumers in the targeted areas were served Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. ads almost 20.4 million times.
This campaign included two primary elements. The first was a YouTube video advertising portion that included newly launched United We Steak videos, as well as a Substituting Beef Is Beyond Impossible video to address the higher rates of meat substitute consumption in the west. Secondly, a Google Search campaign was launched, the primary focus of which was targeting consumers searching “protein-agnostic” searches, such as consumers searching for non-protein specific dinner recipes or meals. The campaign would then serve these consumers beef-centric recipes.
In Nevada specifically, there were over 1.35 million impressions and 851,417 video views through the YouTube campaign elements, and 25,620 impressions and 2,163 clicks through the Google search campaign.
In addition to Nevada, states included in the Western U.S. State Campaign were California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona and Idaho.
All in all, these campaigns worked to keep beef top of mind for consumers in Nevada and across the nation during a summer that held uncertainty, but also saw people continuing to cook and eat at home more often than in previous years.
Please visit NevadaBeef.org or BeefBoard.org to learn more about your Beef Checkoff dollar at work at home and nationally.
By Nevada Beef Council Staff