Commission Promotions Program Expands Online Presence

The Oregon Blueberry Commission stayed with its signature promotional campaign, including contracting for television spots on the KATU show AM Northwest and running television commercials during harvest, while expanding its online presence by adding an additional blogger and launching an Instagram site in its 2020 promotions program.

Sample Facebook posts created by the Oregon Blueberry Commission.

In commenting on the Instagram launch in a phone interview in July, Shawn Anderson, who coordinates the social media program, said, “It has been exciting. We have only been live on Instagram for one month, and we already have 250 followers, which is great growth for a start-up Instagram page.” By the end of September, the number had grown to more than 900 followers. 

The Commission’s Instagram page can be found at @oregonblueberrygrowers.

Anderson said the decision to expand the Commission’s online presence was fortuitous in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, where people are accessing online platforms at a higher rate than normal.

“We are finding that social media usage has soared,” she said. “People are looking at the social media platforms to get information. So, this is a fairly inexpensive way to get our message in front of people about how great Oregon blueberries are.”

The Oregon Blueberry Commission began using bloggers for promotional purposes in 2018, starting out with one that year. It added two additional bloggers last year and brought on a fourth this year.

The bloggers, Amy Knight, Renee Gardner, Ashley Marti and Jami Boys, posted recipes and information on U-pick operations over a five-week period starting with a June 19 post which included a blueberry oatmeal cookie recipe, and concluding with a post featuring a blueberry skillet cobbler on July 24.

A Blossoming Life's Oregon blueberry oatmeal cookies.

The idea, she said, is to use bloggers with high numbers of Oregon followers.

“The first thing that we wanted to do is to use bloggers that are native to Oregon and have Oregonians as followers,” she said. “Then we wanted to make sure that we were using a good mix of lifestyle bloggers as well as food bloggers.”

Bloggers are encouraged to promote the Oregon Blueberry Commission’s website and to write about U-picking, Anderson said. The Commission contracts for one blog from each of the four bloggers. “Once they push out their blog, it goes live, then it also goes to their Facebook page and their Instagram page,” she said.

Bloggers provide the Commission a report at the conclusion of their campaigns detailing how their blog posts and social media shares performed. “We do get feedback and metrics,” Anderson said.

AM/Northwest vignette with brand ambassador Karista Bennett demonstrating a blueberry summer salad with Oreogn blueberries.

The 2020 promotional campaign also included four sixty-second spots on KATU’s AM Northwest morning talk-show program, as well as several live segments on the show promoting blueberries. The Commission also ran more than 300 commercials highlighting the blueberry harvest that featured Silverton grower Karl Dettwyler as well as chef and brand ambassador Karista Bennett, talking about the quality of Oregon blueberries. The commercials ran during airings of the KATU Morning News, Good Morning America, Live with Kelly and Ryan, Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.

Chef and brand ambassador Leif Benson demonstrates an Oregon blueberry panini sandwich on AM/Northwest.