New Mexico Chile Association

The Great New Mexico Chile Taste-Off

Work >> The Great New Mexico Chile Taste-Off

With a global pandemic in motion, a new outreach plan was developed in order to raise awareness about New Mexico’s chiles.

Background

The Garrity Group started working with the New Mexico Chile Association and its New Mexico Certified Chile program in 2017. The firm was asked to help promote the inaugural 2019 Great New Mexico Chile Taste-Off, designed to highlight green chile grown in the Land of Enchantment. It was held mid-September in Socorro, New Mexico.

Challenge

Following a successful 2019 event, the New Mexico Chile Association and The Garrity Group were in the midst of planning for the 2020 Great New Mexico Chile Taste-Off. In March, the impacts of COVID-19 started to manifest in New Mexico. Under the public health orders, which did not allow for mass gatherings, and with concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic, the New Mexico Chile Association needed to pivot away from the inaugural, in-person, chile tasting event.

Solution

With much brainstorming, and by identifying ways to leverage what was open in New Mexico, the team decided to develop a statewide outreach to educate residents about locally sourced chile (the mission of the New Mexico Certified Chile program). The New Mexico Chile Association created take-home, green chile, tasting kits featuring New Mexico farmers. One thousand tasting kits were developed for distribution at a handful of growers’ markets in Los Alamos, Tucumcari, Socorro, Las Cruces, and Albuquerque. The Garrity Group set out to raise awareness of the program, creating an integrated media relations plan. The goal was to raise awareness about New Mexico Certified Chile and the free tasting kits to targeted geographic audiences. The team developed targeted media pitches as well as coordinated a traditional and digital media buy in specific media markets.

Results

Through custom media pitches, The Garrity Group secured 37 media stories around the state including coverage on: KRQE, The Santa Fe New Mexican, El Defensor Chieftain, Las Cruces Sun News, and Las Cruces Bulletin. The coverage resulted in a reach of 3,028,411. In nearly all of the farmer markets lines of self-proclaimed chile experts formed 30 to 50 people deep, all wanting to get a coveted chile tasting kit.

Coverage in Santa Fe New Mexican

Coverage in Las Cruces Sun News

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