Go with the grain

Go With The Grain Campaign

Grain Food Foundation conducted a research about the knowledge of good nutrition that Americans have. Results showed the lack of consumption of bread and grains into our daily diet due to the unawareness of the benefits that a good diet could provide to our health and lifestyle. Thanks to this the foundation decided to launch a Public Relations campaign called “Gowith the grain”, which seeks to find a solution to this problem. Within this analysis the paper discusses the communication tools used, the form of application of those tools, as well as the effect they had within the target market.

Grain Food Foundation was created by several members of both the baking and milling industry to achieve the important task of reaching their target market andcreating an awareness about the great benefits of all the foods that contain grains. One of the reasons is because the foundation believes that Americans have been wrongly advised about nutrition and are concerned with their health. The Foundation receives voluntary donations as their part of funding, mainly from companies that are grain-based, supplemented by industry association (Gowiththegrain.org).The idea of the campaign "Go with the grain" is a response to develop formats that engage their target market to include such grains in their daily diet, giving them added value through media outlets such as: interactive media, celebrities or information more accessible. The campaign was officially launched on September 12, 2009, with “Fitness Mind Body + Spirit Games” at the Central Park in NewYork (Baking management). Their goal is to connect consumers to follow the recommendations of experts in nutrition and make the grain and bread a fundamental food in their daily lives. Their target audience are “generation X moms, women between 25 and 40 years of age” (Supermarket News).

Listed below are some of the means used by “Go with the grain” to get women interested in topics such asfood and health:

1. KROGER

As part of its programming, floor decals were placed in the bread aisles of the stores, this was done in around 2,500 Kroger’s nation wide, with the initiative to benefit food banks. The program directs consumers to create bread art online, donating $1 to feeding America (Supermarket News).

2. DR. WILLIAM DAVIS

Dr. Davis “cardiologist and seeker-of-truthin health” is the author of the book “Wheat Belly”, a book that is based on the idea of “against-the-grain” that talks about the damages that whole grains can cause on the human body.
To combat people like Dr. Davis, who did not agree with the mission of this campaign, “Go with the grain” used selective exposure to expose the target audience to the benefits of good eating habits that includegrains in their diet in a and to invite them to stay constant with their healthy diet, that is if they have one, this selective exposure can also be a good example of an attitudinal objective.
In Dr. Davis' blog ("www.wheatbellyblog.com") you can find items/topics that show the dissatisfaction with the Grain Food Foundation and its campaign. Also Davis’ book and the critics towards the campaign,to which “Go with the grain” responded via a press release minimizing the efforts of Dr. Davis to talk down on the campaign (“The grain foods foundation fights back”).

3. SOCIAL NETWORK

Social media is directed toward the generation X moms, who are part of the target market and whom influence the social media environment in a great way with their involvement. These social media outlets areforms of controlled and uncontrolled media:

A) FACEBOOK (gowiththegrain) this site has interactive tools which are very important, an “Rd” tab where the users get to ask about all the questions relating the campaign and its benefits, as well as with certified sources of nutrition, recipes, notes, videos and interesting links. (Facebook.com)

B) TWITTER (@gowiththegrain) in this page you...