Ch. 15: Advertising and Public Relations

October 16-18 of 2008 Amy’s Kitchen debuted a new product category at the Natural Products Expo East Show in Boston. There they featured their new organic vegan Cakes including Amy’s Orange Cake and Chocolate Cake which are both organic, vegan and delicious! In February of 2009 these cakes were featured in VegNews magazine in a short article encouraging consumers to ring in the New Year with healthy eating habits. Amy’s organic canned beans where featured in The Nibble, July 13, 2009 as a note to “Franks and Beans Day”. September 2, 2009, Self Magazine printed an article, “The whole enchilada: An authentic Mexican meal in your freezer” promoting their new Enchilada Verde whole meal. The same magazine previously awarded them the Lifetime Achievement Award, in their Healthy Food Awards category, for being "body-friendly fast food." These are just a few of the public relations activities that Amy’s Kitchen has been engaged in and encompasses their executional marketing style.

Amy’s Kitchen’s marketers aren’t buying time slots on cable television or ad space in health magazines or on bus stop billboards. Believe it or not, they don’t really advertise but they DO promote their products, and the company as a whole, in the form of public relations (PR). PR is their main marketing tool, with the exception of coupons which in my experience are few and far between. Amy’s reaches a niche (vegans, vegetarians, the diet restricted, health conscious, etc.) that has allowed Amy’s success to grow by word of mouth and by simply being an option among few others. When Amy’s started up about 22 years ago they were catering to a small niche with the primary retailer being health food markets. As a long-time vegetarian I remember as a child (15-20 yrs. ago) my mom preparing the majority of our meals at home, from scratch. Any prepared vegetarian foods (frozen or otherwise) would be found, primarily, in a health food market. There was really no need for advertising because the target market was already at the market, so to speak.

Though, consumer habits have changed significantly since then and people, not just vegetarians, are growing more and more health and eco-conscious. Amy’s does certainly have a reputation birthed from the experience of eager vegetarians, yet they are also engaging in PR with moderate frequency. Amy’s does this by sending out press releases for new products and events they will be involved in. They have been featured by numerous health magazines yet they are also of interest in the business world having been featured in Fortune Small Business where they discuss how they built a leading frozen food brand. The Press Democrat reported them for their environmentally friendly business practices. PR is a powerful marketing activity and has been the road Amy’s has taken into the greater population via popular national magazines and newspapers.