The Big Idaho Potato Truck will take to the highway again this year, after last year’s national tour was cut short as COVID-19 closures began.
This year’s tour is tentatively slated to start July 1.
“That is just in the exercise of caution to allow us time to see how the pandemic sorts out,” Idaho Potato Commission President and CEO Frank Muir said. “We are gauging the start based on that, and we will still evaluate as we get closer.”
The commission will delay the tour’s start further if conditions warrant, he said. Various safety protocols are to be followed at tour stops.
The event lineup is not finalized. Muir said venues and event organizers have shown strong interest in hosting the truck, which has been missed.
The flatbed truck and its giant potato payload a decade ago began annual tours, typically from early March to early September. The truck last year was at a strawberry festival in Florida when the commission called it back March 13; Muir cited safety and well-being of fans and crew.
The average full-length tour costs $700,000 to $800,000, he said. The commission last year saved nearly $700,000, which it put into its reserve account, by stopping the tour in March.
The commission this year expects to save about $300,000 by starting later, Muir said. The commission board March 24 voted to spend it on national advertising, including on television streaming service Hulu, web-based grocery pickup and delivery service Instacart, and recipes.com.
Commissioners discussed putting the money into in-store promotions, as potentially getting money into the hands of producers sooner. They instead approved spending it on national advertising.
Muir said the commission’s budget includes marketing spending on retail, foodservice and international programs as well as national consumer programs including advertising and promotion.
He said the idea is to put the next available consumer-marketing dollar “where it does the most good right at that moment.”
And the commission is “nowhere near diluting the impact of advertising,” Muir said, as it advertises nationally seven weeks a year.
“We are getting among the best returns on our media dollars an any brand,” he said. “Generally speaking as a brand marketer, I would always spend, all things being equal, to make sure my brand is top-of-mind with a quality image all the time.”
The truck, with a driver and two brand ambassadors, stops at destinations ranging from schools, stores and restaurants to fairgrounds, parade sites and sports venues. In a normal year, a tour will cover about 35,000 miles.
Like any marketing spending, the tour’s immediate financial return is hard to quantify, Muir said.
“The fact is that everyone in America knows about this truck” from seeing it at an event or on an ad, he said. “It’s immediate brand recognition.”
March 31, 2021 at 05:30AM
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Big Idaho Potato Truck to hit the road again - Capital Press
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