Los Angeles and its surrounding suburbs are well known for car culture, including those wacky customizations that end up on reality shows on MTV. Cheddar cheese maker Tillamook, a century-old Oregon-based farmer-owned cooperative, isn't exactly Pimp My Ride material, but it nevertheless created highly specialized and recognizable vehicles to promote its brand on a tour of the western United States, with local stops between March 17 and April 12. The campaign, the first of its kind for the brand, is known as the Loaf Love Tour, and is making stops at grocery stores, farmers markets, neighborhoods, and events to offer cheese samples, coupons, giveaways, and product information. The tour consists of a trio of vehicles retrofitted from 1966 Standard VW Microbuses to resemble baby loaves of Tillamook cheddar. The tour will visit 100 cities in nine states throughout the region.
Tillamook's marketing team, helmed by senior director of marketing John Russell and overseen on the project by senior brand manager Kathy Holstad, worked with experiential marketing company Henry V to produce the buses and tour.
"There are certain attributes about our product that really hit home with people, and we worked with Henry V to put together an experiential tasting experience," said Holstad. "People can taste cheese and meet our brand ambassadors, but we didn't want people who didn't know the cheese to hand it out. So teams of brand ambassadors [travel on the tour, including] kids of Tillamook farmers. They have a very personal passion for the brand because it's made from milk from their farm, and they're bringing the farm experience to the tour. Our brand ambassadors really know our products, and they extend that emotional connection. Plus the mini buses are a huge draw, that pop of color. [People say] 'What is that?' It's gone very viral."
The brand is measuring ROI by tracking the number of consumer interactions each day, plus the coupons given away, fan club sign-ups, and cheese cubes distributed. It's also following sales and coupon redemption to see how the tour is altering consumer buying decisions, as well as tracking Facebook activity.
Los Angeles is an important stop for the brand because it affords "the opportunity to interact with a key target market: Hispanic cheese consumers," Holstad said. On a given day, the brand adjusts its strategy slightly to meet local needs or interests. "For example, if we know we are going to be in an area that has a densely populated Hispanic population, we can adjust where our Spanish-speaking staff are located so grocery shoppers at these locations can have a richer experience," Holstad said. On average, visitors spend a minute and a half visiting with brand ambassadors, learning about and sampling products.
