• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, December 12, 2012

Consumers don’t often get the chance to think about bowling, poultry and good deeds in one day, but online grocer Peapod is out to change that. This year, Peapod shoppers will get the chance to select a turkey, then fling it down a virtual lane to generate money for local food charities.

“I’ve always loved the 'Elf Yourself’ promotion, and although we’ve often raised funds for local food banks in ways that highlight our digital functionality, we wanted to do something more fun,”  Peg Merzbacher, Peapod’s director of marketing, tells Marketing Daily. “So HYConnect, our agency, came up with this great game, and we’re hoping to have a viral hit on our hands.” 

Consumers don’t even have to be particularly skillful, with each attempt generating a $1 donation (up to $15,000) to food banks located in its delivery areas. The mobile version can be especially challenging, she says, adding that it has taken her some time to get her turkeys out of the gutter.

The company -- which currently operates in Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin -- says it intends to donate more than $62,000 this year to its hunger efforts, and has already given $47,000. Much of that, she says, was raised by asking fans to “like” its Facebook page, “but we wanted to do something that gave people a few chuckles and let them do a good deed at the same time.”

In addition to promoting the game on its Web and Facebook pages, she says the company -- a division of Ahold -- is emailing its customer base as well.

Peapod’s other charitable initiatives include a Kids Give Back program, which provides classrooms with $500 in donations, which they can then distribute to local food charities, as well as Peapod Community Days, which work with mayors to deliver food banks to communities in need, and recently have included Sandy-struck towns in New Jersey.