In small neighborhoods across New York City, people often walk down from their apartments to go to the local bodega to buy a bag of chips and a soda.
The Wise brand has had a longstanding stronghold in the city for more than 75 years and is running a multifaceted marketing program to reach African Americans and Hispanics living in those neighborhoods. It is unloading everything youth this summer, including music, dancing, video, texting, baseball, wads of cash and, of course, potato chips.
“We are focused on a particular channel which is the bodega, locations smaller than a convenience store, and African Americans and Hispanics tend to be the consumers that use that channel,” said Jolie Weber, vice president of marketing and related products for Wise Foods, Inc. “We wanted to find a promotion that would appeal to that audience. There’s also a general appeal and popularity of dance contests with the general population because of shows like “Dancing with the Stars.”
The Wise Big City Boogie caravan is traveling around searching for “New York’s Best Dancer” carrying street teams, a dance floor and samples. At the launch event May 20 outside Madison Square Garden, Courtney Galiano, the “So You Think You Can Dance” finalist and former Knick City Dancer hosted the event and encouraged people to show off their best dance moves. Each dance contestant is video taped and the videos are uploaded. Some 43 videos were generated at the event. At a second stop in the Bronx another 25 dancers were videoed.
The branded vehicle is traveling to many high profile events and festivals including the Bronx Music Festival, Puerto Rican Day Parade, Juan Pablo Duarte Carnival, Carnaval Del Barrio, Bronx Week Parade & Festival, Broadway Street Fair and Old Timers Stickball & Musical Street Festival and others.
Weber said anywhere from 2,500 to 5,000 people will be at the events depending on the scale of the affairs.
The program promotes seven types of quarter bag chips ($25 cents each) including potato chips, popcorn and onion rings. Custom designed bags were developed to hand out at the stops along with a “business card” that includes the URL to the Web site and a coupon.
Street teams will make unscheduled stops in neighborhoods in Long Island and in Newark during the Portugal-Brazil World Cup Soccer game, as well as in some of New York’s five boroughs. Source Communications is handling the program.
In store, an on-bag promotion directs consumers to the Web site.
Online voting will choose three finalists, who will compete for the grand-prize $10,000 at Citi Field during the New York Mets-Philadelphia Phillies game on Aug. 14. Other prizes will include New York Mets tickets and Big City Boogie merchandise such as free music downloads, T-shirts and coupons.
Fans at the game can text in to vote (combined with online votes) for the winner. In addition, one text-in voter will be randomly selected to win a $1,000 cash prize. The program also leverages Wise’s Facebook page and Twitter account encouraging people to post their own videos and visit the microsite.
Wise has had a partnership with the Mets since 2005. This is the fifth year the brand has run a promotion for its small bag chips in conjunction with the Mets.
“Most of the ROI that we calculate is based on the sales that we generate so it’s a pretty straight forward calculation,” Weber says. “We have definitely seen a sizable payback on the opportunity.”
Media support includes a partnership with Fuse TV, local Radio and cable TV advertising, online Web banners, panel advertising throughout New York, and a viral and social media campaign.
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