1. Categorie:
Government and municipality and public sector campaigns
Title of campaign:
Choose poultry!
short common description of the campaign::
Campaign "Choose poultry!" was initiated by Latvian Federation of Food
Enterprises and supported by association Mārketinga padome. Campaign was
financed by the Ministry of Agriculture to state the government's support to local
producers and inform Latvian society about advantages of poultry. It is a common
practice in Europe as well. Last year poultry and bread industries were chosen to
be supported in Latvia.
It was essential to remind consumers about the advantages of including poultry on
their daily diet menu - poultry is healthy, easy to cook and tasty! It was important
to stress advantages and clear the myths related to poultry industry in Latvia (use
of hormones while breeding, weight gain because of poultry fat etc.)
We developed the idea of campaign and carried out media and other PR activities,
including research, to support the idea of campaign.
Campaign duration - 3 months (October - December 2007)

2. research work done during the campaign:
The kick-off was a round-table discussion with VIPs: dietician Lolita Neimane,
cardiologist Iveta Mintāle, Vice-champion at Sydney Olympics Aigars Fadejevs,
World power lifting champion 2004 Ivars Cīrulis, director of Baltic Ballet Festival
Lita Beiris, poultry technologist Pārsla Dzirne. The aim was to find out what are
the reasons to include poultry products on a daily menu from the medical/health
point of view, understand how it works in practice and find out how the poultry
business is operating in Latvia. Different questions raised by journalists were
answered, e.g., is it true that children are becoming mature at very early age
because they eat "matured" meat? How can we be sure that poultry products in
Latvia contain no hormones or other additives? Round table discussion was
reflected by largest local printed and wire media.
Public opinion survey was one of the first activities carried out to initiate
discussion about stereotypes, opinions and habits of poultry consumption in
Latvia. Survey was made based on "omnibus" approach. Results were pretty
surprisingly, because no one thought that around half of the respondents consume
poultry products at least once a week. Around 3/4 stressed they choose poultry
because it tastes good. Other reasons which were mentioned: health and price
issues. Results of research indicated important issues to be raised-up during the
campaign.
Regular meetings with field experts, brainstorming and account manager's research
were done.

3. strategy:
Strategy&goals:
1)to develop a dialog between producers and government and discuss industry
problems;
2)to raise awareness of poultry as a healthy product for daily consumption in local
market;
3)to educate different target groups (adults, children) about habits of healthy
eating, including various recipes.
Target audiences: general public, teachers and pupils, governmental institutions.
Messages:
-poultry is rich in nutrition and offers wide range of cooking possibilities!
-eat healthy, eat at home, cook at home - choose poultry!
-healthy lifestyle starts with healthy attitude towards what we eat.
PR activities, channels & methods realized within the campaign:
1)development and distribution of campaign's booklet;
2)regular media relations;
3)round-table discussion with VIPs;
4)round table discussion between producers and state representatives;
5)public recipe competition - poultry dishes;
6)development of an informative and educational scholastic material for secondary
school teachers;
7)public opinion survey (omnibus inquiry);

4. 8)participation in a TV show dedicated for cooking.
Nowadays, when people are very busy and spend more time eating outside and
paying less attention to healthy lifestyle, the goal of this campaign was to inform
the society about poultry - it nutritional value, wide range of cooking possibilities,
time and money saving! Advice No. 1 by dietician Lolita Neimane is to cook at
home, even if there's a lack of time. Therefore, chicken (poultry) is a very good
alternative to semi-finished goods. With this campaign we wanted to create
awareness to this issue. That is one of the reasons why the main information
carrier for this campaign was a booklet with tasty and easy-to-cook recipes with
some additional and useful information about poultry. Form of this booklet was
very interesting - a fridge magnet! You can always find an inspiration to cook just
within a hands throw.
We tried to break traditions and offer new approaches for Martin's Day festive
board - instead of tradition goose prepare a chicken! It is much easier, faster and
saves money. For this we used TV show Rīta mikslis with Egils Zari š on Martin's
Day morning.
It is important what do field professionals think about poultry, therefore, a round
table discussion with VIPs was carried out - to inform the society of potential
health benefits and other issues. Thus, Latvians like to know how celebrities live
and work. Information/advices by professional athletes, doctors to include poultry
products on the daily menu can be very useful and inspirational to consumers.
During this campaign we focused also on schools and pupils to create awareness of
healthy living and eating habits already at early stage. Family and schools are
influencing the decisions made regarding eating habits. Therefore, we created a
scholastic material for secondary school teachers. It is suitable for lessons about
health and eating/cooking issues.

5. Results of the campaign and evaluation::
Publicity results:
5 press releases issued and published in total 22 times; news developed from press
releases - 10; articles in biggest daily newspapers (Diena, Latvijas Avīze), weekly
lifestyle magazine for women (Marta); feedback in media on activities carried out.
Wide campaign coverage and reflection in wire media.
Discussion about industry problems and state support was reflected in one of the
biggest business newspapers in Russian - Bizness&Baltija.
Other results supporting campaign goals:
-more than 10 000 booklets with recipes were distributed during the promo
activities in supermarkets.
-public recipe competition
Activities of this campaign covered almost the whole country: scholastic material
was sent to all secondary schools in Latvia (together 1015), winners of the recipe
competition were from Jelgava and Ventspils district, campaign booklets were sent
to Education departments of 7 big cities in Latvia. Newspapers Diena and Latvijas
Avīze have subscribers across the country, therefore, information was accessible
for a wide audience.
The highest responsiveness was for the recipe competition - 64 recipes were
submitted, total amount of visitors - 142 000. Afterwards biggest daily newspapers

6. informed readers about the results of this competition.
During the campaign people were supported with a lot of practical information
about how to cook poultry. Besides practical information also useful information
about nutritional value was delivered.