By Alicia Karapetian for Meatingplace. Used by Permission.
The National Turkey Federation (NTF) plans to extend its digital reach in an effort to attract more consumers to turkey consumption and to the NTF Web site, including young people.
NTF has had an online campaign pitched to foodservice operators for a decade, but this year, “We want to get the consumer side of the Web site to mirror the extensive information on the foodservice section,” NTF VP of Marketing and Communications Sherri Rosenblatt told Meatingplace.com.
To enhance youth demand, NTF has created a digital application on Facebook.com — the popular youth-oriented networking site — called a voki. A voki is a three-dimensional representation of a person, animal or object used online, or what online gamers commonly refer to as an avatar.
NTF’s voki will look and talk just like a turkey, complete with programmed messages about turkey’s positive attributes.
NTF hopes Facebook users will virally move the voki throughout their friend networks. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook currently has 64 million active users, a number that only includes those who have returned to the site in the last 30 days.
“We believe that the Facebook voki will provide us with an opportunity to speak to a consumer in a manner they enjoy … and get them to think about the attributes of consuming turkey,” Rosenblatt said.
