PG Food companies adjust sampling tactics to help bring back the free sample experience amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Market analysts release timely Food Sampling: Experiential Marketing Benchmarks Report as the sampling world heats back up with new and improved activation strategies.

When it comes to marketing products in the CPG Food category, there is no better way to gain consumer insights than by letting them try the product for themselves. Traditionally, the most common forms of CPG Food sampling have come from conventional retail outlets and the company itself. Experiential has long been another avenue for CPG brands to sample their products. As continued precautions around the COVID-19 pandemic maintain hold on direct-to-consumer marketing tactics, CPG Food companies look to experiential marketing to bring back a safe sampling experience.

For some companies, sampling has gone digital. With grocery e-commerce taking off, food manufacturers are turning to online engagement strategies to help bring in new customers. For instance, Campbell Soup Company recently launched their new Twisted Pretzel Sticks for their Snyder’s of Hanover brand. The company marketed this new product by disturbing more than one million Pretzel Sticks bags to customers who ordered online or participated in-store pick-up at several contributing grocery outlets.

Sampling benchmarks are helpful when trying out new strategies. Benchmarking metrics represent data from multiple experiential marketing campaigns combined in different ways to serve as a point of comparison. PortMA’s CPG Food Sampling Benchmarks consist of data derived from over 36,000 consumer exit interviews conducted at more than 6,000 events where a CPG Food brand was sampled. Event ROI data from onsite consumer interviews are combined with field staff recap insights to form the basis of the data marketers can use to develop a safe, profitable consumer sampling program.

Benchmarks gathered from this report showcase how consumer insights are applied across all brands in the food sampling category. According to Chris Clegg, President and Research Director. “We find that companies who learn from the mistakes of others do better, faster. Not all consumer sampling has generated a positive return for brand teams. Now, with the stakes even higher, brand teams who use sampling to market their products to consumers directly need to understand the factors that make a campaign successful. There is no better way to do this than with a clear understanding of what has worked before.”

**CPG Food category benchmarks include **

* Bread & Bakery;

* Canned Goods & Soups;

* Condiments,

* Spices & Baking;

* Dairy, Eggs & Cheese;

* Frozen Foods;

* Grains, Pasta & Sides;

* Meat & Seafood;

* Cookies, Snacks & Candy (i.e., Candy, Cookies, Edible Cookie Dough, Ice Cream, and Snacks).

****This product includes the full research report. This research report will be delivered via PDF.****