Natural Delights, a Medjool date brand, has announced a new recipe contest and content partnership with food media powerhouse Food52 in order to increase consumer demand for the dates.
The four-and-a-half week recipe contest will launch February 14, 2017 and the comapny expects it to reach over 4.5 million consumers and food influencers. Consumers along with Food52’s network of foodies and home chefs will be asked to create their own delicious recipe that includes Natural Delights Medjool dates. A selection of up to 10 finalists will have their recipes tested and professionally photographed by Food52’s team of food stylists and recipe developers.
“We’re thrilled to partner with such a well respected media brand and influential driver of consumer food trends. Our partnership with Food52 is designed to drive purchase of the Natural Delights brand and educate consumers about the versatility and nutritional qualities of our Medjool dates,” says Erin Hanagan-Muths, Director of Marketing, Bard Valley Date Growers.
The partnership marks the start of a 365 omni-channel marketing campaign that includes national print advertising, programmatic digital advertising, content partnerships, consumer influencer promotions, event marketing and social media content marketing that will run throughout the 2017-18 season in the U.S. and Canada.
Thanks to a continuous series of promotions and marketing campaigns over the past three years, partnered with a strategic repositioning of the Medjool date category, the company claims that the Natural Delights brand now accounts for over 85% of the total date category share of dollars and volume and dominates the marketplace with 10 times the sales rate of all other brands combined.
“By redefining the Medjool date category and focusing on powerful promotions like our Food52 partnership we have been able to go from leading the category to being the category. When shoppers are looking for dates, they are actively seeking out the Natural Delights brand.” says Erin Hanagan-Muths, Director of Marketing, Bard Valley Date Growers.
