Overview: Consumers today are inundated with an over- abundance of conflicting messages on nutrition that leave them more confused than ever. From books and magazines to television programming, the plethora of advice makes it difficult to extract fact from fiction. Grocery chains large and small, both regional and national, have aggressively entered the market to help consumers shop good nutrition and use their own products and shopping experience to sell a healthy lifestyle.

The Challenge: Safeway was a late entry in offering its customers nutritional information on food labeling, coming in after major competitors including Whole Foods and Trader Joes had well-established lines. Safeway was also competing with stores like Walmart and Target for bargain hunting customers looking for low priced groceries. It was against these challenges that the company began planning a February 2011 launch of its own in-store nutrition coding system, called SImpleNutrition. Given the competition from big brands, Safeway needed exposure with impact, to break out in a cluttered marketplace. Compounding the challenge were two significant factors: In the court of media opinion, journalists were skeptical of how Safeway defined “nutrition,” and Safeway does not have a presence in some of the largest media markets, including New York City.

The Plan: In developing a plan to address these challenges and issues, Access PR took a three pronged approach to to educating consumers via a broad-based media campaign to extend coverage over sustained period of time.

• “Go Glocal”: Access catered to individual media markets (local) while maintaining a national appeal (global): Prioritized target media cities and deployed a survey that polled moms about nutrition road blocks and shopping habits. The survey revealed city specific trends that gave the media relevant and new data points to report on.
• “Give Voice”: Access enlisted SimpleNutrition designer, Kerry Neville, to bring fresh perspectives to the media. Her professional qualifications and her role as a mom gave the media a credible resource to interpret key messages.
• Timing, timing, timing!: Timing was everything: Leverage National Nutrition month to add a timely hook to the campaign and create media excitement.

Results: SimpleNutrition appeared in 122 top tier publications, resulting in over 200 million impressions. Most importantly, each placement included key SimpleNutrition messaging.