For years, turkey has been stereotyped as a Thanksgiving icon. Research shows consumers believe turkey is a leaner protein option, but doubt its taste can match other meats for everyday meals. To combat this misconception and boost sales of lean ground-turkey and turkey-burger patties, Jennie-O needed to empower busy moms, who intend to eat healthy but often make bad food-choices for convenience’s sake, to change.The strategy was to pull turkey out of the holiday haze and motivate consumers to take an all-American classic — the hamburger — and 'Make the Switch' to lean and delicious turkey burgers.

A TV ad and paid media laid the foundation. It became an integrated campaign when we added the credibility of earned-media through public-relations (specifically traditional media-relations and social-engagement); gave people a real, live experience, sampling the product, delivering a sense of excitement; and created an online community to spark conversation among Jennie-O turkey-burger converts.In the span of a week, we borrowed equity from a popular food truck and sampled 2,500 signature turkey-burgers, established a robust Facebook community, and earned millions of media impressions touting the alternative burger.

• Took over one of the most popular New-York-City-based food-trucks, the Bistro Truck, and rebranded it with striking graphics and switched out its notable menu with tempting turkey-burgers.

• Gave away burgers for a week, each day in a different high-traffic area so consumers could taste the unexpected: a lean and delicious turkey-burger from a trusted chef, inspired by New York City's neighborhood cuisine.

• Conducted an earned media outreach, including creating a media-only Jennie-O bistro, allowing media to sample all 5 burger recipes and interview The Bistro Truck chef.

• Outreach to food, nutrition, culinary and family bloggers.• Tapped into The Bistro Truck’s vast network of Twitter-followers.

• Launched Jennie-O’s Facebook page, encouraging burger-tasters to communicate their experiences and have ongoing brand-interactions.

• Added interest and encouraged social-sharing by awarding Make the Switch surprise gifts to those who tweeted and posted on Facebook about the burgers.

The campaign exceeded expectations. In a 2-week period around the activities:• Baseline sales of fresh ground-turkey increased to 20% (from just above 10%).• Brand awareness grew: unaided awareness increased from 34% (May) to 41% (August).• Purchase-intent improved: it increased from 47% (May) to 55% (August).• Secured 1.4 million earned-media impressions, including target real-time blog-placements in Good Housekeeping and Fitness.• Website traffic increased 24% over the time-period prior.• SwitchToTurkey.com, the new Facebook page, was an instant success, achieving more than 23,000 fans (more than a 100% increase over the goal).• Sampled 2,500 burgers.As the year continued, through additional outreaches around 'Make the Switch':• Generated more than 88m earned-media impressions, including a coveted appearance on the Today Show.• Facebook engagement grew to more than 164,000 fans as of March 2012.