35,000 New Reasons to Stock Vidalia Onions Following Nationwide Promotion

Fans of Georgia’s sweet onion printed almost 50,000 Vidalia coupons this summer with a whopping 26% of those consumers redeeming them to cash in on Vidalias. Having more than a quarter of shoppers coast to coast take the coupons to the store is a boon for Vidalia growers and retailers alike; the couponing company reports 8% would be typical for online redemption. The Vidalia Onion Committee (VOC) launched a new Vidalia Onion Facebook page in conjunction with the coupon offer and year two of its promotional partnership with Universal Music Group Nashville. During the four month campaign, fans of the site shot up over 35,000. “That first day was scary, sweet,” says Wendy Brannen, executive director of the VOC.  Brannen reports the number of fans increased by the hundreds every few minutes, eventually finishing at over ten thousand by the end of the day. “Seeing that much interest was so exciting it made you feel like a kid, but I also kept seeing the coupon redemption costs associated with every new fan ringing up like the slots in Vegas!” Brannen adds. The VOC continues to actively engage new fans with product details, promotional offers, contests, recipes and other interesting tidbits that will continue to boost retail sales. The social media promotion featured free music downloads and prizes ranging from autographed country music CDs to a trip to the set of a country music video. Consumers “liked” the Vidalia fan page to receive a coupon to purchase Vidalia Onions by the pound or to buy bags of Vidalia Onions featuring country artists and new versions of old favorite Southern recipes. Home cooks were encouraged each week to enter a recipe photo contest to win country music CDs autographed by Universal artists. Weekly photo winners were entered to win a grand prize trip for two to the set of a country music video. Country music fans were also allowed to choose one of the 400,000 songs in the Universal Music catalog to download for free.