From Amanda Rose, Ph.D., Founder of Eat Like a Bear!:
Eat Like a Bear! is seeking marketing partners. If you’re a super-cool brand in the produce and grocery industry and if you are as awesome as the Eat Like a Bear! community, we may be a very good fit. I hope you read on.
We’re out Living Our Most Vibrant Lives, Free from the Shackles of Extra Pounds
The Eat Like a Bear! community has achieved unprecedented success in weight loss in a highly underserved demographic: older women who have always struggled with their weight.
To date, we’ve had over 200 community members lose at least 100 pounds, and we’ve had thousands of other weight loss success cases. (Find our “Century Bears” here.)
Many of us are one-meal-a-day eaters, often eating a giant crafted salad or skillet dish.
Our tagline is: Eat, and go be awesome!
We eat fairly distinctly, but our success may mostly be due to our “go be awesome” focus, as we have many people getting out and hiking, kayaking, and horseback riding for the first time in decades.
We’re a Growing Movement with Earned Media
The Eat Like a Bear! movement is growing largely through friend and family member referrals and is growing in social media. Many of our community members are directly accessible via email (and the email community is growing by a couple of hundred people daily).
The community has had some great media appearances, including being featured eight times in a national magazine. I’ve also been on multiple regional TV spots. (Find our earned media here.)
In July 2023, Eat Like a Bear! made Yahoo News for having 200 community members who had lost at least 100 pounds. (Find the Yahoo News article here.)
We Have Life-Changing Reports From Many People
We have extreme life-changing reports coming out of the community daily:
- Improvements in mobility: Starting with canes, walkers, and wheelchairs and ending on hiking trails.
- Improvement in agility: Being able to get back on the literal horse and ride on horseback for the first time in decades.
- Improvement in size and flexibility: From being too big to fit into a kayak to being able to step into one and row on the open water.
- Improvements in insulin resistance and A1c: Members reporting a reduction in medication and in symptoms of diabetes.
Our core mission is to lead these life changes in our distinct demographic AND THEN to impact the younger generations that follow us.
We do so with a way of eating that is highly accessible in all ways, but especially financially. This is a way of eating that can be done on a SNAP/food stamps budget.
I teach this way of eating for free and hold no secrets behind a paywall.
Our Way of Eating Fills Shopping Carts With Fresh Produce
At Eat Like a Bear!, we have a distinct meal framework that drives the success you are seeing. I ate one meal a day to lose 140 pounds, and it was often a giant salad or skillet dish, now known as the “Ridiculously Big Salad” and “Ridiculously Big Skillet.” Each leverages a large base of vegetables to keep the number of calories low.
This way of eating is highly effective for weight loss, and it embraces whole foods and vegetables in a way that makes implementation extremely easy and inexpensive. (Find a series of simple meals on YouTube here.)
Notably, the core community of Eat Like a Bear! is in America’s heartland, and many of its members live in rural communities.
Those Shopping Carts Are in Memphis, Milwaukee, and Missoula
Although we have community across the globe, the core of Eat Like a Bear! is in America’s heartland.
When we analyzed our first 100 Century Bears (members who lost at least 100 pounds), it became evident that the Eat Like a Bear! message resonates in rural America:
- 8 of the first 100 Century Bears are from Missouri, 8 from Texas, and 5 each are from Wisconsin and Michigan.
- The most “urban” Century Bears (5%) come from suburbs of Dallas, Charlotte, Seattle, and St. Louis.
- Southern California Century Bears are from Idyllwild and Temecula.
- While there were no Century Bears from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, or New York, two of the first hundred are from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. One lives in Alaska.
If you’ve been seeking to reach consumers in America’s heartland, you’ve found the right partner.
What Impact Could a BILLION Social Media Views Have, Featuring Lettuce and Broccoli (and Such)?
For the relatively little time I’ve been able to spend in social media, we get an impressive number of views here at Eat Like a Bear.
What might happen for our mission and for the fresh produce industry if we could achieve a billion views?
Here’s the key opportunity: Not only can we get a lot social media views featuring produce, our community members purchase these items and then….
(wait for it….)
…we EAT them and buy more…
AND THEN… we change our lives and become examples for our friends and family.
If our social media work was actually funded, we could get a whole lot of views.
Wouldn’t that be something?
We Do Have a Key Barrier
Why doesn’t Eat Like a Bear already have a billion views in the fresh produce category?
Because I’m back here trying to figure out how to pay to teach everyone how to do this for free, on a SNAP budget. That takes a lot of time and energy that could otherwise be used making fun lettuce-throwing TikToks.
What if your sponsorship paid for a part of this social media mission?
You May Be a Good Fit
You would be a good fit if you are a large national brand with a good service and safety record and with good product diversity in the fresh produce category. In the grocery category, general is better. In a survey of community members, most shop at Walmart, Costco, Aldi, and Kroger stores.
Brands and grocery chains focused in urban areas or solely serving an organic market are probably not a good fit. (But thank you all for your service.)
Food brands with specific useful whole foods products may be a good match as well. We eat a lot of salads and basic skillet dishes and soups. A key part of our message is simplicity and we do sometimes lean on products such as convenience flavor concepts like tubes of garlic, ginger, or cilantro; seasoning blends, infused vinegar and oils.
Seeking Marketing Partners for Our Food Message
If you are as awesome as we are, your brand will fit very well in both our short and long-form videos.
- We have a YouTube series of recipes that always integrates some sort of fresh produce. Your brand could be integrated into that series immediately.
- We have had great views with short-form video of super-quick “whip it up in five minutes” messages, which would allow for easy integration of your brand.
- We send a weekly story via email to our email community of 120,000. Your brand could be included along with the story.
Thank You for Your Consideration
Thank you for your consideration and your help in supporting our mission. (Read our mission here.)
Amanda Rose, Ph.D., Founder, September 2023
