Program overview

Wild Planet, a sustainable canned seafood company, has grown its partnership with Sampler over the years. They have leveraged a variety of Sampler’s solutions and audiences to run bespoke multi-touchpoint campaigns that evolve with their brand’s objectives over time. Sampler's vast database of over 1.2 billion first-party data points not only enabled them to efficiently distribute 115,000 samples of three different products, but also ensured that each unit found its way to its target consumer.

The following timeline illustrates the evolution of Wild Planet and Sampler’s partnership, which started with a single-SKU sampling initiative that grew into a three-product sampling program with consumer journey touchpoints integrated throughout.

Driving sales incrementality and household penetration

Through Sampler's innovative retailer partnership solutions, Wild Planet seamlessly integrated their sampling program into Kroger.com's checkout process, delivering a premium, personalized, direct-to-home sampling experience for pickup and delivery shoppers.

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“Sending our samples directly to consumers created a uniquely curated experience that allowed us to build awareness in a much more meaningful way vs other sampling tactics like in-store demos.” - Kendall Miller, Director of Marketing, Wild Planet

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Over the course of the program, 10,000 samples of the Wild Tuna Pasta Salad were efficiently distributed to verified Kroger shoppers who explicitly self-selected the product, ensuring zero wasted samples. Almost all of the shoppers who claimed the sample were net new to the Wild Planet brand, increasing the potential for household penetration gains post-program. The impact on sales was equally remarkable as shoppers who sampled converted to purchase at a rate 92 times higher compared to a control group of identical Kroger shoppers who did not sample the product.

Collecting ratings, reviews, and segmented insights

A pivotal objective throughout the partnership has been to garner authentic ratings and reviews for Wild Planet’s products. This was particularly important for the year-long program they ran in 2023 in which they distributed three products–Skipjack Wild Tuna, Albacore Wild Tuna, and Wild Tuna Pasta Salad–to Sampler’s audience. 80,000 units of these three products were segmented into five offers, each with unique targeting parameters, ranging from retailers their consumers shop at to their dietary preferences.

This segmentation allowed Sampler to reveal individualized insights for each product and audience group. For instance, Wild Planet received over 22,000 detailed reviews with constructive feedback from consumers on what they liked and disliked, allowing the brand to align their product marketing strategy with what resonated with consumers. Additionally, the brand learned about their audience’s preferences as a whole compared to those of the average Sampler, such as how much their consumers value healthy eating and what age range they most likely fall under.

Building product awareness and advocacy

On top of gathering ratings and reviews, Wild Planet had four key outcomes they wanted to achieve for their Wild Skipjack Tuna program specifically:

1. Bring awareness and excitement to the Skipjack sample
2. Highlight Skipjack benefits & differentiators
3. Debunk myths about Skipjack
4. Emphasize messaging on product sustainability / sustainable shopping

Sampler’s in-house creative team crafted a series of branded content social posts to target these objectives, launching them at various points throughout the post-claim journey to create a comprehensive sampling experience for users. Custom photography drove awareness and education to claimants as well as our larger social audience, and custom videography shared product benefits and differentiators through a recipe inspiration video and debunked myths about Skipjack through an additional Instagram Reel.

Through engagement on the posts, the brand was able to see immediate feedback from consumers that indicated a strong interest in trying their brand, particularly among tuna enthusiasts who were inspired by the engaging recipe content.

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Key Takeaways

Sampler’s comprehensive solutions proved instrumental in meeting Wild Planet’s evolving business needs, and demonstrated the effectiveness of direct-to-home sampling programs in driving consumer engagement and purchase behavior. The Kroger.com integration catalyzed sales growth and expanded household penetration by reaching 99.8% new consumers, the multi-SKU program provided valuable insight into targeted consumer preferences with over 22,000 reviews, and the custom consumer journey touchpoints effectively drove awareness and education for a priority product.

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Interested in learning more? Speak to a sampling expert! 

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