You

1. RFP PROPOSAL F OR PUBLIC RELA TIONS AGENCY
RFP PROPOSAL F OR ADVE RTISING AGENCY
California Walnut Board/California Walnut Commission
Fiscal Year 2011-2012
Presented by leereedy/xylem Digital
Agency Contact: Scott Snyder, Principal/Chief Strategy Officer, 303.865.8244

2. As we near the fall walnut harvest, which looks like another record-setting year,
the importance of developing an airtight marketing program for the CWB/CWC is
crucial. Excess production means an excess of walnuts to sell. So, it’s our mission,
with the following plan, to increase overall domestic demand for and consumption
of walnuts in the coming year. Here’s how we’ll do it.
Walnut Market Overview

3. The Conversation
is flourishing
People all over the world love walnuts. We know this not just because you’re selling
thousands of tons of them every year, but because – for the last 28 days – we’ve been
listening to people profess their passion for walnuts across the Internet. Through
thisprocess,we’vediscoveredatangibleopportunitythatnowalnutmarketerhasyet
to harvest. We believe it can be yours.
Despite walnut lovers actively passing along recipes and sharing advice about har-
vesting, preparing, cooking and consuming walnuts with other walnut lovers, not a
single walnut grower, producer, distributor, packager, association or brand is en-
gaging in or helping guide that conversation online. So, that’s what we decided to
do over the last 28 days.

4. What We Did, Exactly
In one month and with no financial outlay, we created the single best resource for
capturing and sharing ongoing information and conversation about walnuts. You
can visit our conversation engine now at www.WalnutLovers.com. It’s a walnut lov-
ers paradise.
What you’ll find there is an aggregation of every video, Twitter mention, blog post
andnewsarticlefromthelastmonthaboutwalnuts. Theengineisupdatinginreal-
time, which means it’s constantly being fed the latest walnut mentions from around
the world – more than 4,000 unique mentions, in total. Try Tweeting a message
right now that contains the word “walnuts” and you’ll see it appear right there be-
fore your eyes on the site.
In essence, we’ve harnessed this vey passionate ongoing conversation in a single
venue – drawing walnut lovers to the website (which will become part of the updat-
ed web presence we’re recommending to you), allowing you to feed your followers
any information you desire
when they arrive, and putting
the CWB/CWC at the head
of this exciting dialogue. It
doesn’t end there.

5. What We Did Next
With the intent of demonstrating that the CWB/CWC can own the walnut conver-
sation, our next step was to engage with walnut lovers. We re-tweeted physicians,
health professionals, dietitians, vegans, gluten free dieters, moms, publications,
press releases and menu items that mentioned walnuts. We commented when peo-
ple were saying negative things about walnuts across the web, and we answered any
and every question people posted about walnuts.
With every comment, we showed our love for walnuts and how much we loved peo-
ple for loving these super nuts. As long as they were talking about walnuts, we were
saying hello and testing whether they’d say hello or follow us back on Twitter.
We’ve been working on this dialogue for exactly one month. We’ve engaged in con-
versationeverydayandcontributedtoit.Inthattime,we’veaveragedmorethan500
newTwitterfollowersandreceivedmentionsandre-tweetseveryday.Wehavemajor
organizations like Diamond Foods, Fisher Nuts Brand, Carrino’s Family Restau-
rant, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, LA Times and many more who are engaging
with@WalnutLoversandcreditingusasaresourceforhealthandnutrition.Inad-
dition, the Walnut Lovers website has generated thousands of pageviews and people
are spending an average of 6
minutes,25secondsonthe
website – an astounding
amount of time resulting
in significant, tangible
engagement that could
be used for the benefit
of the CWB/CWC.
And we’ve done it all
withnomoneyandonly
a small time invest-
ment.

6. What We Learned
Walnut Lovers Demographics:
There are 14,147,000 walnut consumers in the US
82% are women, 18% are men
70% are over the age of 45
Health professionals, magazines, chefs, foodies, food bloggers, moms,
health and nutritionists, schools, and school admin and teachers actively share
their love of walnuts with others online
Aging baby boomers are very big walnut consumers because of the
Omega-3 fatty acids and other health benefits
Moms are another major segment of the market. They’re concerned for their own health
and the health of their children. Walnuts are often used as a healthy snack for lunches.
Chefs are all about walnuts. For them, walnuts are a delicacy food which, when
included as an ingredient, add flavor and a look of elegance.
Health professionals are another major contributor to the consumption of
walnuts – as they love that walnuts are high in Omega-3 fatty acids, plant
sterols and provide the proper choloric intake
“Gluten free,” “diets,” “nutrition,” “food,” and “snacks” are the most
common # tags being used on Twitter in association with walnuts
Walnut Lovers Psychographics:
53% try to eat healthy and pay attention to nutrition
49% cook meals frequently
15% recommend food products they like
44% feel like they eat right
Market Attitude:
The perception of walnuts is strong and screams healthy, nutritious, fun and festive.
There is no negative sentiment of walnuts, except from those people who simply don’t
like the taste (who we’ll have a tough time convincing, regardless of what we do).
People are constantly talking about why they like walnuts and what they like to eat with
walnuts – including everything from salads, pizza, beers, wines, breads, tarts,
cheeses, brownies and other deserts.
For More:
Read the blog we created as a way to journal our ongoing learnings at:
www.walnutlovers.com/blog.

7. Where We Want to Take You
Withoutamoreintimateunderstandingofyourbrand,howit’sbeingmarketedto-
day,aswellastheuniqueinputandinsightsonlyyoucanprovideus,pleaseconsider
the following plan a first blush take on how California walnuts should be marketed
next year. Because we’ve found walnut lovers to be so active online, we’ve skewed the
plan toward a web approach – supporting it with traditional offline campaigns. We
believe this will give you the most bang for the budget.

8. BRAND DEVELOPMENT
Two Weeks to Truth™
:
Two Weeks to Truth is the unique process we use to inform and kick-start posi-
tioning,innovation,productdesignandcommunicationsstrategy/execution.Itisa
short, intense workshop attended by your best thinkers and ours. We get unexpect-
ed,powerful,actionableanswers.Wewalkawaycompletelyalignedandunderstand-
ing a well-defined sweet spot. Two Weeks to Truth is a roadmap-for-doing that
engineers success from day one. We add social listening, crowd-sourcing, counsel
from our advisory board (made up of B2B and B2C marketing experts). Not just
a deck full of words – the report includes positioning and brand essence, brought
to life through product concepts, tactics or creative. You end up with concepts and
supporting materials you can take right to validation – or right to launch if you’re
readyforareal-worldtest.ClientswhohavebeenthroughtheworkshopincludeKC
Masterpiece, Clorox, Chiquita, Covidien, Atkins, Naked Juice, Sports Authority,
re:newal and Activate, among others.
Estimated Cost: $25,000

9. ONLINE
Website:
Starting with what we’ve created at WalnutLovers.com and leveraging the content
that already exists on Walnuts.org, we’ll grow your website into a socially powered
site that owns the conversation around walnuts. The site will be highly dynamic,
updating constantly with new information, drawing a large audience of consum-
ers, health professionals and trade partners, and repositioning walnuts as the (most
loved) super nut in the world.
Estimated Cost: $80,000
Website SEO:
We believe it is a grave disservice to build a website for a client that is invisible to
search engines and ultimately potential customers. To drive relevant traffic to your
site, we’ll implement a 12-month SEO plan. Pricing includes keyword research,
competitive analysis, recommendations and implementation to optimize website
code and content to ensure proper indexing and recognition by search engines. In
addition, pricing includes link building to grow site authority, as well as monthly
performance reporting and recommendations.
Estimated Cost: $75,000
3 Promotional/Seasonal Campaigns:
Micrositesareanexcellentvehicleforlaunchingnewproducts,limitedtimepromo-
tions, online sweepstakes and contests, supporting a national advertising campaign,
or as a means of focusing additional content and functionality around a strategic
point of difference for a product or service. While most microsites are intended
to have a limited lifespan, many live on with a strong user following for years and
represent an excellent search engine optimization (SEO) source linking traffic to
the primary company or product site. During three key times for walnut sales next
year, we’ll develop online campaigns/microsites to drive visibility and engagement
with walnuts – one could be during the holidays, another could be something we
create such as National Walnut Lovers Day. We’ve produced hundreds of success-
ful microsites for a wide range brands and online objectives, including Norwegian
Cruise Lines (directed to travel agents), The Geek Squad (in-home wireless ser-
vices),FreshExpressSalads(YourSaladStory),Chili’s(BabyBackRibsMonth)and
Jack Link’s Beef Jerky (Messin’ With Sasquatch).
Estimated Cost: $75,000

10. ONLINE
Monthly Email Program & Management:
We propose developing two versions of a monthly email program – one directed
toward consumers and the other for health professionals. “Drip” campaigns are
designed to feed prospects with a series of emails over time to increase their inter-
est, education and influence their eventual decision to purchase. We can provide
a comprehensive database marketing strategy and implementation that allows cre-
ation of a powerful CRM solution and deployment of sophisticated database (email
and mobile) marketing campaigns that drive measurable results. Database market-
ing is about much more than opens and clicks. It’s about developing personalized,
relevant content that meets the subscriber’s needs and elevates the subscriber’s ex-
pectations. This campaign will deliver on all of these fronts.
Estimated Cost: $80,000
Social/Mobile-Based Application:
Recognizing that most consumers “carry” their computer with them as mobile de-
vices, creating easy access to brand and service applications through mobile devices
is more important than ever. We’ve produced many mobile applications that have
provided our clients with the means to develop an entirely new segment of their
client database with which they can maintain a relationship with through mobile
channels. Social/mobile applications can range from product or service alerts and
reminders,tomobiletoolsandinstantaccesstoimportantproductorserviceinfor-
mation,toentertainmentandsocialapplicationsareintendedtobesharedthrough
pass-along or through a social network (such as Facebook). Your mobile/social ap-
plication idea will be customized to your specific needs and brand strategy.
Estimated Cost: $95,000

11. offline
Print Advertising:
To augment our 3 promotional/seasonal online campaigns, we’ll develop a print
advertising campaign to invite readers of newspapers and magazines (which our au-
dience tends to consume more than other media options) to get in on the fun of
our online promotions. Pricing includes development of three promotional/sea-
sonal print campaigns.
Estimated Cost: $30,000
Holiday Recipe Booklet:
Holidays are high season for walnuts and walnut recipes. During the holidays, we’ll
create a custom ‘recipe/entertaining’ idea booklet that features tons of recipes for
walnuts. This will be available for digital download on the website and will be pro-
moted through the print and online seasonal campaign.
Estimated Cost: $20,000
Collateral/Tradeshow/Misc.:
Your RFP mentions the need for the advertising agency to develop collateral, sig-
nage and tradeshow materials. This portion of the budget will be used for these
purposes, including printing, as necessary.
Estimated Cost: $175,000

12. MEDIA
Media Usage:
Our target tends not to be huge media consumers across the board, but have a
greater likelihood to read newspapers more than other media options. They’re
more likely to be in 2nd/3rd quintile for all other media.
Media Quintiles:
22% in 2nd magazine readership quintile (110 index)
25% in 1st newspaper readership quintile (121 index)
22% in 3rd radio listenership quintile (110 index)
21% in 2nd online quintile (104 index)
22% in 2nd outdoor quintile (112 index)
Top Publications Read:
The Atlantic (233 index)
Bon Appetit (204 index)
Midwest Living (217 index)
Sunset (215 index)
Coastal Living (192 Index)
Real Simple (183 index)
Cooking Light (175 index)
Martha Stewart (175 index)
Food & Wine (174 index)
Online Activities:
32% get recipes online (124 index)
33% shop online (101 index)
26% get medical info online (136 index)
21% make travel plans (119 index)
26% obtain financial information and 12% track investments
10% read blogs (110 index)

13. Media Strategy:
We’d like to consider a geo-targeted focus if there are key pockets of high walnut
consumption – so we can get the most of the media budget.
Plan Considerations:
Print/online campaign combination in cooking and recipe-focused ver-
ticals
Huge online social push, Facebook application, app for cooking
Initiate Cooking Clubs that have online resources, ideas, themes that uti-
lize recipes
Holiday time period – custom publish a ‘recipe/entertaining’ idea booklet
that has tons of recipes for the walnut
Do cooking segment/sponsorships with local shows or in news
DJ chatter for Walnut lovers, sponsor cooking tips and holiday music
Alternate Plan:
Consider 100% grassroots-type campaign as option
Events, cooking and arts festivals
Really unique outdoor and non-traditional placements – wrapped trains,
high impact 3-dimensional outdoor creative with extensions
In-store unique placements such as walnut stickers on fruit (that would be
used in a recipe or that go together (e.g. banana nut bread)
Estimated Cost: $400,000
Total Estimated Advertising/Online Cost: $975,000
MEDIA

14. PUBLIC RELATIONS
Monthly Email Program & Management:
Wedon’tliketobeblindsided,andweknowthere’smoretolearnabout
thewalnutconsumerandyourtargetaudiences.Toensureourcommu-
nicationmessagesresonate,weenlistafour-prongedvalidationstrategy
todimensionalizethecurrentaudience,establishtargetsforgrowthand
buildbrandproposition.Thisportionoftheprogramisdependenton
existing consumer research. Pillars of the program include:
Discover: Gain a foundation of knowledge and identify equities
and capabilities that can be leveraged for growth through data
generation and review, stakeholder interviews and consumer
deep dives through online idea labs.
Build: Generate hypotheses for future growth through a core
team ideation session and identity and refinement from con-
sumer research.
Optimize: Bring the scenarios and strategies forward for con-
sumer testing. We will first garner reactions to concepts from
bothmembersandnon-memberstodeterminewhichwillreso-
nate most deeply to create the most positive brand momentum.
We then recommend using a quantitative approach to more
accurately measure the brand’s opportunity going forward by
identifying the size of the prospective consumer sets and priori-
tizing features and benefits to attract these sets.
Manifest: Using input from Phase 3, we’ll review and analyze
thekeyfindingsandinsightsandcreateafullysynthesizedlookat
the opportunity, which will be presented in a detailed report.
Estimated Cost: $385,000

15. PUBLIC RELATIONS
We’llemployanumberoftacticstofuelCWB/CWCkeymessagestocoreaudiences.
Each program will be customized to the organizations’ specific needs, but some of
the vehicles we’ll put in motion include:
Social Media Program & Management:
Social media provides some of the best vehicles for connecting one-on-one with
consumers to build an opt-in community, stoke brand loyalty, ignite peer-to-peer
endorsement, and reach consumers and influencers who already have a vested in-
terestinthefoodandindustry.Fromwhatwe’vealreadycreatedwithWalnutLovers.
com, you can appreciate the power of monitoring and engaging in relevant con-
versation surrounding your product. We will utilize sophisticated “social listen-
ing” tools to identify active discussions about your brand, category and industry
as a basis for understanding consumer perceptions, mis-information, competitive
issues, and damage control issues that need an effective communications strategy.
We’ll then leverage active social participants and influencers as a qualified “testing”
audience for message and product platforms. In addition, we’ll drive or assist you
in formulating appropriate participation and “response strategies” to both positive
and negative conversations about your brand or product and identify compelling
social applications and campaigns that can be deployed to create a massive following
of brand enthusiasts within social communities and networks.
Estimated Cost: $962,500
Media Relations:
Through our research, we’ve learned there are many stories about walnuts to be
told, including seasonal trends, market data, milestones, recipes, health benefits,
events, diet trends and many more. We want to get the press talking about walnuts
in the ways that set them apart from other nuts. We’ll get media influencers shout-
ing about California walnuts from the rooftops – in the outlets your consumers
and health professionals are reading and viewing, including health and nutrition,
foodandculinary,newsandgeneralinterest,andmore,acrossbroadcast,printand
digitalmediums.Infact,we’vealreadysetthestageforastrongmediafollowingwith
our conversation engine (The Los Angeles Times is following and engaging with us
on Twitter!). Continuing our monitoring, outreach and engagement through on-
linesocialvehicleswillbeagreatwaytoindentifymediamemberswhowillberecep-
tive to our story that we can reach out to. In addition, every station now has cooking
and health segments, which are in perfect alignment with our message.
Estimated Cost: $962,500

16. PUBLIC RELATIONS
Tradeshow PR Support:
We don’t believe walnuts should be wallflowers at pivotal tradeshows, so we’ll help
maximize your presence at key shows by planning events, driving press traffic and
identifying opportunities for education. One initial thought is to develop a booth
that carries over our theme of Walnuts Lovers who love to spread the word about
walnuts. We’ll hire a huge group of extras to surround our booth and talk about
what they love about walnuts – instantly making us the most popular, most buzzed
about booth at the show.
Estimated Cost: $192,500
Educational Outreach:
Whether it’s communicating the health benefits of a diet rich in walnuts to the
press, trade, health professionals or consumers, we’ll craft attention-getting tac-
tics that drive home your message in a fresh, effective way. As the website footprint
grows and we start demonstrating our obsession with everything related to walnuts,
we’ll become the de facto resource for any information related to walnuts. We’ll be
viewed as the resource for health, fitness, cooking, studies, news and events – in
turn, making us the place everyone turns for knowledge.
Estimated Cost: $385,000

17. PUBLIC RELATIONS
Events and Contests:
We’velearnedahands-onapproachtoengagetargetaudiencesisoneofthebestways
to get your message front and center. We’ll ignite exciting, out-of-the-box events
and contests to bring consumers into the product experience. By the very nature of
building this social online community, the CWB/CWC will have amassed a large
audience that’s receptive to events, contests and promotions you offer – ensuring
anything you do is successful. You’ll also be assured that you’re always included in
any event or contest related to the benefits your nuts provide to people’s lives. This
campaign will make walnuts mainstream, like the campaigns for California raisins,
milk and Baby Carrots have done.
Estimated Cost: $385,000
Media Tours and Press Events:
We’ll get your key executives in front of a captive media audience through experi-
ential press events, desk-side meetings and media tours to personalize the walnut
experience and encourage press coverage. We’d love to develop a press event and
campaign to romanticize the experience around the walnut harvest season for the
entire country, like wineries have done, to gain a whole new appreciation for this
craft.
Estimated Cost: $192,500
Estimated Agency Fees: $385,000
Total Estimated Public Relations Cost: $3,850,000

18. YOUR STORY WITH THE
We can’t wait to SHARE
Thanks for your time.
world.

19. Now, close this book.
Flip it over. And read thE other
side of the story – about us.