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Butterball amps up mobile offerings for Thanksgiving

Butterball has relaunched its Turkey Talk-Line just in time for Thanksgiving with mobile components such as an SMS alert system.

With the new mobile component, Turkey Texts, consumers can text the keyword TURKEY to short code 36888 from their mobile phone to get information for their Thanksgiving meals. Meal tips are also available on Twitter and Facebook.

?The mobile offerings are an extension of the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line and allow us to provide helpful holiday information, as well as money-saving tips to cooks in new ways,? said Kari Lindell, director of retail marketing at Butterball, Garner, NC. ?We?re excited to be talking to new consumers, as well as building relationships with existing consumers to reinforce Butterball?s heritage as a trusted, expert resource on turkey and the holidays.?

Butterball is a producer of turkey products in the United States. 

Butterball previously let Cellufun mobile gamers buy and cook virtual Butterball turkeys on their handsets. People texted in to get recipes from Butterball (see story).

Gobbling up mobile
Consumers can call the Turkey Talk-Line at 1-800-Butterball to get the tips from professionally-trained turkey experts. The hotline gets more than 100,000 calls each year.

For the on-the-go consumers who tex- in, the turkey giant will respond with tips on topics such as how much turkey to buy, thawing reminders and cooking temperatures.

The hotline and text messaging services opened Oct. 15 and will close Nov. 30.

At http://Butterball.com, consumers can get expert turkey advice, coupons, how-to videos, new recipes, leftover ideas and cooking calculators.

Ms. Lindell said that the Thanksgiving cooks ? both novices and seasoned pros ? are the target demographic for the tips.

?The primary intention of the mobile site and Turkey Texts is to help all consumers have a picture-perfect Thanksgiving dinner by offering timely tips and expert holiday cooking advice,? Ms. Lindell said. ?When the Turkey Talk-Line started in 1981, the phone was the best way give people the important turkey-cooking information.

?Now, as a new generation of Thanksgiving cooks emerges, we want to provide our expert holiday advice the way new cooks want it?online, on demand and on the go,? she said.

When a consumer opts-in for the Turkey Texts, he or she is only in Butterball?s database until the end of November.

After November, Butterball informs the consumer that the program has ended for the year and that the company will ask them to opt-in again in 2010.

Butterball also has a mobile site located at http://m.butterball.com.

On the WAP site, consumers can get the same tips that are available via the PC Web, view how-to videos, get coupons and sign up for the Turkey Texts program.

Butterball?s mobile site launched October 2008 and Ms. Lindell said that last year it saw more than 30,000 visitors.

?The mobile site was created to be an extension of the online site,? Ms. Lindell said. ?It?s a way to provide Thanksgiving cooks with money-saving tips, simple recipes, expert advice and turkey calculators where and when they need it ? at their fingertips while browsing the grocery store for what size turkey to buy, at the countertop while prepping the Thanksgiving meal, etcetera.?