As part of the campaign The Aroma Company were challenged, by McCain’s promotional agency Blue Chip Marketing, to present the aroma of McCain’s ready baked frozen jacket potatoes within supermarket frozen food aisles in an engaging and interesting way.
In a first for Poparoma and frozen foods, The Aroma Company’s branded barkers were affixed to the glass refrigerator doors. Consumers push the Poparoma button to release a waft of the jacket potato aroma.
Installed in 300 Tesco branches and over 400 Asda, the Poparoma barkers enabled consumers to engage with a frozen food product in a new, interactive and innovative way.
The sense of smell is intimately linked to taste. Remember the last time you had a blocked nose and your food tasted bland and uninteresting? According to Dr Alan Hirsch of the Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, 90% of what is perceived as taste is actually smell. By incorporating aroma into the instore promotion, McCain’s have a fabulous solution to disrupt shopping behaviour and encourage purchase of their ready baked jackets.
Mark Hodge, McCain Foods head of brand, said: “McCain will be unmissable over the next 12 months. It’s a big year for the brand and we have big plans to grow the brand and the category by changing the way we talk to the consumer”.
The scented units are a “first for the frozen aisle” and will create “added excitement around frozen food, drive footfall and encourage more consumers”.
“As a result, we’re expecting to significantly grow the brand and the frozen potato category. We have never placed so much support behind our brand and we wouldn’t be doing that if we weren’t confident that we were going to be able to have a major impact.”
Myrtle Doyle, Group Account Director at Blue Chip Marketing, continues: “We are really excited about this activity for McCain. Here at Blue Chip, we always try to push the boundaries of accepted shopper marketing practice and it’s great to see ideas like this come to life”.
Val Lord, Managing Director of The Aroma Company said; “Poparoma is the perfect solution for a freezer aisle promotion. Interactive and compact, Poparoma allows the product’s aroma to be sampled in a convenient way for both the consumer and the supermarket. We have enjoyed meeting Blue Chip’s challenge and would encourage more frozen food products to follow McCain’s example, and engage consumers through the sense of smell”.
