Whole Foods Market is leveraging digital channels in this year's holiday efforts, reaching out to consumers through its website, email newsletters and social media site Twitter. The alternative grocer is operating a holiday microsite that delivers how-to cooking and decorating videos (see below) hosted by Hosea Rosenberg (a winner of Bravo Media's Top Chef), as well as other guides, tips, recipes and gift ideas. The site's promotional theme is "Celebrate," which also is being used on a variety of P-O-P materials including table displays, cooler signs, endcap headers, shopping bags and counter signs. Elsewhere, counter signs promote holiday-themed gift boxes that are also touted on the retailer's home page and in emails to registered customers. The boxes contain various food and/or personal care products and range in price from $40 to $60. Whole Foods is using the boxes, which rolled out in October, as an incentive for its email newsletters: Consumers who subscribed from Dec. 6-17 were automatically entered into a "Twelve Days of Gift Boxes" sweepstakes that awarded one box daily. In a cause overlay, the chain offers free shipping on boxes ordered online for delivery to overseas military addresses.The chain currently offers three newsletters: "Whole Foods Market News" provides chain-wide news, coupons and health and budget tips; "Whole Foods Market Recipes" delivers cooking suggestions; and "Whole Foods Market Local Store News and Sales" offers deals, discounts and event information from specific stores.In other seasonal activity, Whole Foods is working with GFA Brands' Earth Balance on an online "Holiday Bake-Off" contest that awards eight winners with $400 store gift cards and a year's supply of the brand's product. Consumers enter from Nov. 29 through Dec. 26 by submitting original holiday dessert recipes with photos to the brand's website in weekly flights that each highlight a different baked good (such as pies, cookies and cakes). The recipes must contain at least one Earth Balance product. Judges select two weekly winners whose recipes may also be featured on Whole Foods' website. A post on the chain's blog and emails to subscribers help promote the contest.Meanwhile, the retailer engaged readers of its blog with a sweeps awarding five holiday CDs from Putumayo World Music. Consumers entered by submitting a comment about favorite "non-traditional sounds of Christmas" from Nov. 22 through Dec. 7.Also in November, the retailer spotlighted wines in a "Top 10 Holiday Wines" list that included Valley of the Moon Winery's Syrah, Paso a Paso Winery's Tempranillo and Bubo Cellars' Old Vine Zinfandel. (The chain regularly releases wine lists. See "Whole Foods Market Field Report: Aug. 13, 2010" in Related Articles.) The retailer promoted the selection with a Twitter "tasting" on Nov. 17 that had two of its national wine buyers sipping and tweeting about six of the wines. In stores, the wines are promoted via numerous displays, ceiling banners and other P-O-P materials. Whole Foods also recently partnered with wine website Snooth.com to run a "Top Ten Wines" sweeps that awarded a trip to California wine country. Entry ran from Nov. 4-30 on the chain's website. A blog post supported. Among earlier digital efforts, Whole Foods launched an application for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch that lets users earn "badges" as they undertake healthy activities. Dubbed "Market Mission," the app also provides healthful tips on topics such as cooking, nutrition, green living and food storage (as well as the requisite store locator). The chain's year-old "Market Recipes" app lets users search for recipes by ingredient or dietary preference. (See "Digital Marketing Roundup, Spring/Summer 2010.")