• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, October 15, 2010

Sunkist Growers, Inc. is rolling out mobile marketing programs, making it among the first North American produce brands to employ mobile shopper marketing technology.

The programs use on-pack and in-store signage to encourage shoppers to text a keyword to a code to receive product use ideas, recipes, nutrition information and storage/handling suggestions, enter sweepstakes, and sign up to receive additional product offers and information via mobile or email updates.

"Adopting a mobile strategy seemed like the next logical step in our efforts to get closer to consumers and interact with them while they are making their purchase decisions," says Julie DeWolf, Sunkist's director of retail marketing. "Our goal is to give shoppers more reasons to buy Sunkist citrus and teach them about the varieties that may still be foreign to them, such as Cara Cara navels or Minneola tangelos. The instant gratification and information that mobile marketing provide are an important part of that process."

During the past three months, Sunkist, which is using mobile solutions for both branding and consumer promotions, has implemented several retailer-specific initiatives, according to DeWolf.

In a promotion with Giant Eagle, two-pound bags of Sunkist Lemons bore plastic Kwik Lok tags that incorporated a text code for receiving lemon recipes and tips (the backs of the tags included Sunkist's site URL and a message to follow the brand on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube). In U.S. Safeway stores, the same recipe/tips offer has been promoted via special display bins spotlighting a text code. Sunkist hopes to roll these bins out on a national basis.

In a Sunkist promotion in Safeway stores in Canada, consumers could text the word "hockey" to a code to enter a sweepstakes.

This season, Sunkist plans to create mobile sites for many of its product varieties and include their text codes in all of its point-of-sale materials, reports DeWolf. Each site will explain the unique attributes of a variety, as well as offer recipes and information on availability, nutrition and purchasing/storage.

The company also plans to begin incorporating the codes in advertising and PR efforts. "We hope to increase the usage and make mobile a more natural, everyday part of our consumers' interaction with our products," says DeWolf.

Sunkist has employing the Tagga Media mobile platform to drive its campaigns. OneMediaGroup (Sacramento, Calif.) created an integrated approach to incorporate mobile in Sunkist's current marketing strategy.

Use of mobile shopper marketing technology is, of course, expanding rapidly among food/beverage and other CPG marketers. Kraft Foods, for example, has been rolling out smartphone and iPad apps that not only enable accessing product information, videos, recipes, offers and coupons while shopping, but offer capabilities such as scanning UPCs on products in the home pantry to create digital shopping lists and converting recipes to digital lists, reports CPGmatters.com.