IGA Retailer Best Practices Perspective

Crossroads IGA Stores Join Forces for One Exceptional KidsFest Carnival!

A message to the IGA Alliance from...
Shannon Hunt
Marketing Coordinator
Houchens Industries
Bowling Green, KY
LDC: Associated Wholesale Grocers, Inc.

IGA's second community marketing event of the year, IGA Hometown Fest, is going on through the end of August. IGA stores across the U.S. are taking part in this summertime event by hosting carnivals to celebrate their local kids. Today, Houchens' Shannon Hunt shares how four Crossroads IGAs leveraged a relationship in their community to create an exceptional KidsFest event.

There are four Crossroads IGA stores in the Bowling Green area, and for years now those stores have been joining together to hold one large KidsFest carnival. The community has always looked forward to it, so when this year our regular venue didn't work out we knew canceling wasn't an option. We started looking into other venues, including the local Beech Bend amusement park. We've sold tickets to the park in our IGA stores for a while now and we sponsored some renovations of the park last year, so we thought it couldn't hurt to ask.

We had a meeting where we pitched the idea with the director of the park, and she loved it. She was so excited she offered us a place to set up in the park at no charge, and also arranged for half price admission for kids 12 and under on the day of the event. After that we were totally sold and started planning.

Each of the four Crossroads IGAs formed a five or six person team, then everyone got together to work out the activities. They had lots of great ideas, and eventually landed on things like a dunking booth, face painting, karaoke with a local celebrity and a scavenger hunt.

The team members all had specific assignments, and when they got there an hour before the gates opened the day of the KidsFest they were able to jump right in. We organized a buddy system so that there were two people stationed at each activity, and boy were we glad we did that when we saw how many kids were there. We knew Beech Bend was a popular amusement park, but we assumed that we would end up having around 300 or so kids because most people would be visiting other areas of the park. We actually ended up with thousands of kids, and our IGA employees were working double time to keep things organized!

In the end we really couldn't have asked for better IGA advertising. We had IGA Red Ovals all over the park—and even better—we made sure that every one of those thousands of people would end up in one the Crossroads stores by handing out store coupons. It was a great event, and it certainly reinforced how important it is to build relationships in your local community!

Thanks,

Shannon Hunt

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