This article appears in Potato Grower Magazine’s 2020 Idaho Annual issue.

The new fiscal year always brings a sense of renewal, and I’m sure many of us have been looking forward to the 2020 Idaho potato crop, restocking the retail bins, and getting high-quality spuds in consumers’ hands and stomachs!

We at the Idaho Potato Commission (IPC) have a superb consumer marketing program planned for the upcoming year. And, if we need to pivot due to circumstances beyond our control like we had to do in the spring, we’ve proven we can do it quickly and successfully. Here’s an overview of some of our biggest initiatives happening during the first half of the year.

National TV Commercial

In 2019, we filmed two commercials at the same time with the intention of launching the second commercial this fall. The new commercial, which we call “Side Dish,” will begin airing after the election and run through the end of March on popular networks like Fox News, CNN, Headline News, History, Food Network, HGTV, Cooking Channel, Hallmark, NBC Sports, ESPN and Freeform, as well as streaming platforms Discovery Go and Hulu.

Boise State University

At the end of September, the Mountain West Conference announced that its football season will not be canceled after all. Each team is scheduled to play eight games—four home and four away—beginning Oct. 24. The IPC will get its sponsored game plus significant in-stadium signage and broadcast coverage for all Boise State home games.

Digital

AllRecipes.com is the No. 1 recipe site on the internet, with over 29 million estimated unique monthly visitors and food enthusiasts from one of our target demographics (women ages 25 to 54). Beginning in November, we’ll be promoting Idaho potatoes to this important audience through a mix of Idaho potato-focused social media recipe videos, recipe integrations on the AllRecipes.com platform, digital advertising and digital recipe cards.

During the busy holiday season, we’ll have a strong presence on two leading digital grocery sites: Walmart Grocery and Kroger.com. Through targeted display ads and boosted searches for Idaho potatoes, we’ll be able to increase Idaho’s share of online potato purchases by reminding shoppers of Idaho’s superiority at the point of purchase.  

Social Media

The IPC social media following continues to grow, offering a unique opportunity to reach consumers directly. This year, we’ll work with popular social media influencer A Cook Named Matt, who has close to 300,000 followers; the FeedFeed, an award-winning Instagram page for foodies; and DishWorks, a niche culinary content agency that creates engaging and, most importantly, shareable videos featuring Idaho potato recipes.

Nutrition

We are always striving to remind consumers of the potato’s impressive nutritional profile. In the spring we will announce a partnership with the American Institute for Cancer Research, where Idaho potatoes will be included on the organization’s list of cancer prevention foods. We will also be adding a filter to the recipe database on the IPC website that identifies which recipes meet the criteria for select popular diets. We’ll also be updating the websites’s entire Nutrition section.

Harvest Tour

Due to COVID-19, our annual food blogger harvest tour had to be redesigned. As an alternative, we invited five bloggers who’ve participated in the harvest tour in the past to share their experiences in a #ThrowBackThursday campaign during the month of October on Facebook and Instagram. Each blogger will promote a different aspect of Idaho potatoes and/or harvest (like the state’s unique growing conditions, versatility, harvest facts and nutrition) so our social media followers are presented with a complete and informative story about Idaho potatoes.

Holiday Entertaining

In December, Idaho potatoes will be prominently featured in holiday entertaining roundup articles in Us Weekly, In Touch Weekly and OK!, reaching tens of millions readers.

In addition to these larger-scale programs, we will continue to keep Idaho potatoes top of mind through our consumer newsletters Let’s Eat and Tater Talk, ongoing media outreach and daily social media posts. 

Let’s pray this upcoming year brings us all lasting health, prosperity and happiness.