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WHEN TO SAY WHEN

How soon should the holiday dinner program season start, and how loudly should retailers trumpet it?ir promotion programs earlier this year, and in some cases increasing the amount of advertising and promotion. Others question the wisdom of hitting consumers too soon before the fact, or even frown on advertising altogether.The one thing they all seem to agree on is the effectiveness of word of mouth

How soon should the holiday dinner program season start, and how loudly should retailers trumpet it?

ir promotion programs earlier this year, and in some cases increasing the amount of advertising and promotion. Others question the wisdom of hitting consumers too soon before the fact, or even frown on advertising altogether.

The one thing they all seem to agree on is the effectiveness of word of mouth advertising, which they credit for pushing sales up each of the past three or four years.

Nancy Rand of Quillin's, La Crosse, Wis., is one who believes in supporting that word of mouth with advertising and promoting holiday dinners, and doing it early on.

"The more times they see you'll be offering holiday dinners, the more apt they are to think of you when the time comes to order," she said.

Other retailers also told SN they're advertising earlier and plumping up their schedules.

Harps Food Stores, Springdale, Ark., for example, has doubled its radio advertising this year, to culminate with live broadcasts from two of its stores the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Hughes Family Markets, Irwindale, Calif., will promote its holiday meals via direct-mail ads for the first time this year.

Rice Food Markets in Houston and B&R Stores in Lincoln, Neb. both pushed their first holiday dinner ads back to the third week in October. Previously, neither retailer had run a holiday-meal ad in their circulars before Nov. 1.

Not everyone is celebrating early, however. Tom DeVries, director of food service at D&W Food Centers, Grand Rapids, Mich. said early ads have not proved effective for his chain.

"We've found it just doesn't pay to advertise too early. It's the ads in November that customers pay attention to," he said.

Advertising is not seen as a sure bet to boost sales at Pay Less Supermarkets, Anderson, Ind. "We need to do more to make the customer aware of what we have. But I'm not sure that ads are the way to get more sales for holiday meals," said Tim Kean, deli-bakery-seafood merchandiser.

"Rather than spend more on our ad budget, we're concentrating on doing a better job on signage in-store. For example, the types of signs and the placement of them are very important. A nice display and signs that customers can see from a distance are the most important for increasing sales, we think," Kean said.

He said the signs will be added in stores this week and will urge shoppers to "Be a Guest at Your Own Party" and to "Let Us Take the Work Out Of Your Holiday Dinner."

In-store sampling is another point of agreement between the retailers SN spoke with. Most said they will heighten the level of sampling for the meal components this year.

Ingles Markets, Black Mountain, N.C., will offer a turkey dinner special before Thanksgiving at its hot-food counter, said Phil Grasso, vice president of deli/food service. That way, customers get to taste the turkey, dressing and potatoes, all the elements that will make up a holiday turkey dinner.

Product tastings have become a big in-store event at Busch's Valu Land in Ann Arbor, Mich. The nine-unit, upscale retailer has invited consumers to attend "Taste of the Holiday" events for the last two years; this year's is set for Nov. 8 and 9.

In each store, customers can taste holiday products, including the holiday-dinner components, at demo stations that are staffed all day.

In two units this year, the turkey dinner demo station will be set up directly in front of an 8-foot wall of rotisseries on which whole turkeys will be twirling, said Dan Courser, vice president of perishables at Busch's.

"This will add a lot to the presentation. The rotisseries, which we added just six weeks ago, can hold 12 whole turkeys at a time," Courser said.

Signs in windows and elsewhere in the stores were put up early to alert customers about holiday meals. "We planned early this year. We got all our planning done in September and we got the point-of-sale materials to the stores early," Courser said.