Aug 10, 2017

By: Tom Cosgrove, Manager, Program and Development, FMI Foundation
Food Lion National Family Meals Month Social Media Promotion

A study conducted for FMI by Nielsen found that 95 percent of those who learned of the National Family Meals Month™ campaign on social media or by e-mail changed their shopping and consumption habits because of it. Traditional media had an impact too: Seventy-five articles were published on the campaign last year, multiple retailers ran radio and TV spots, and the FMI Foundation partnered with Litton Entertainment to run public service announcements on ABC Television.

Clearing the topic of family meals is easily shared through both digital and traditional media. How can you use different types of media to promote your National Family Meals Month campaign? Here’s what a few of your peers did last year:

  • Meijer, with stores throughout the Midwest, used social media to launch an online photo contest in which families could use a hashtag to show pictures of enjoying meals together. Winners received $100 Meijer gift cards.
  • Each week during last year’s National Family Meals Month, dietitians at Martin’s Super Markets in Michigan and Indiana created simple, affordable themed recipes that families could make themselves. They then went on local radio stations to give weekly live reports on the benefits of the recipes as well as pre-recorded spots that aired several times a day.
  • Food Lion posted timely, relevant questions via social media channels with attention-grabbing images and asked shoppers to respond with their answers. Ten participants in the campaign with particularly clever responses received $50 Food Lion gift cards.
  • Eggland’s Best, a company that provides egg-related products throughout the country, ran an advertorial in the Los Angeles Times that promoted National Family Meals Month and featured two family meal recipes that required less than 30 minutes to prepare.

What will your online and traditional media campaign to encourage families to eat one more meal together each week look like? Get more ideas from the 2017 Best Practices for National Family Meals Month guide and join the conversation on social media with #FamilyMealsMonth.