Jack Link's Enlists Circle K's C-Stores To Help Celebrate National Jerky Day

Minong, Wis. — Link Snacks’ Jack Link’s brought National Jerky Day to life at retail for the first time with a promotion at roughly 1,000 Circle K convenience stores. The account-specific effort built upon the brand’s annual June 12 celebration of the “holiday,” which launched in 2012.“We wanted to try to extend National Jerky Day into more of an event and also start to dip our toes into the shopper marketing waters – because Jack Link’s had never really done shopper marketing prior to this year,” says Jeff Kjome, shopper marketing director for Jack Link’s. “So this was our first attempt at activating that at retail.”While the brand’s target market is broad, the core target is males in their early 20s, making the convenience store channel a natural fit for the brand. “We also know that when shoppers are purchasing snacks, they also quite often purchase a beverage to go along with it,” Kjome says.These insights informed the Circle K promotion, which ran through the month of June. Shoppers who bought a bag of Jack Link’s got a free Jack Link’s National Jerky Day collector’s cup that they could keep and fill for a free soda. Shoppers who returned with the cup over the next four weeks could get a free refill with the purchase of another Jack Link’s bag.All participating Circle K stores received a shipper that was branded with the promotional offer and that also contained the full kit of ready-to-use materials for the promotion – cups, soda fountain signage, a counter card, an exterior sign, a gas pump topper and tear pads. “Our goal with any retailer is to make this as simple as possible so it doesn’t have to do any work on its end to get this up and running,” Kjome says.The gas pump topper and exterior signage were designed to attract customers into the store, while the other displays aimed to keep customers thinking about the offer once inside. “Displays are an integral part of our marketing because we know that the category can be impulse-driven, and that one of the biggest barriers to purchase is that consumers just don’t think about meat snacks,” Kjome says.The shipper featured the original and teriyaki flavors, two perennial bestsellers for the brand, along with information on the offer. To encourage Circle K employees to bring further attention to the promotion, Jack Link’s promised a pizza party for all of the employees of the Circle K store that redeemed the highest number of offers.According to Kjome, the brand will define the promotion’s success based on offers redeemed, consistent in-store execution across the Circle K stores, and customer feedback. The brand also expects to gain insights from the effort that can improve future shopper marketing initiatives.The promotion was put together in a short timeframe, starting with its conception in February. “Knowing that retailers are often operating on limited timelines, Circle K was very flexible in letting us do this offer and gain some valuable learnings from it,” Kjome says. “They’ve already offered some ideas for improving these types of cross-category tie-ins as we look ahead to next year’s programming.”Jack Link’s partnered with Twinoaks, Dallas, on the shopper marketing elements of the campaign, and with Spong, Minneapolis, on the PR activities for National Jerky Day. The national effort features a jerky-themed PR event every year. This year, the manufacturer brought “Meatzilla,” a three-story bag of jerky, to New York City’s Meatpacking District – or the “Meatsnacking District,” as Jack Link’s renamed it for the day. Passersby in Gansevoort Plaza enjoyed free samples of the brand’s new jerky formulation and could meet “Sasquatch” from the brand’s popular TV spots. Consumers worldwide were encouraged to participate by using the hashtag #Meatzilla and tagging Jack Link’s in a photo on Twitter or Instagram for a chance to win a one-year supply of Jack Link’s beef jerky.

Jack Link's Enlists Circle K's C-Stores To Help Celebrate National Jerky Day

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