All across America, the sports focus is shifting to college football — and also to Avocados from Mexico.

Mexico's fall crop is currently being harvested, and AFM's first promotion of this season will kick off Sept. 8 and run until Dec. 15, mirroring the college football season. The promotion tagline is "Hungry for Football" and will be conducted in partnership with ConAgra Foods and its Ro*Tel line of canned tomatoes.

"The featured recipe is Rockin' Guac," said Maggie Bezart Hall, vice president of trade and promotion for Avocados from Mexico. "You can combine the Ro*Tel with our avocados and have instant guacamole."

She said the emphasis on making guacamole continues AFM's strategy of focusing on the most popular uses of avocados and expanding consumption in that manner.

The promotion will be multi-layered with the use of television, social media, in-store merchandising, print media, trade advertising and public relations.

The television ads will appear across the country during college football telecasts on many different networks. She said viewers of college football strongly skew toward AFM's target market, which is the 25-54 year old demographic of both men and women.

"More and more men are becoming the primary shoppers for their households, and this is an excellent opportunity to reach them," she said.

In addition, Hall said that women make up a sizable percentage of the college football audience, so the advertising hits a good cross-section of Americans.

The social media campaign will include advertising on several major sites including Facebook and Twitter as well as the use of a mobile app. That advertising will promote a consumer sweepstakes from which shoppers can win grocery gift cards. The promotion will also feature a coupon offering a free can of ConAgra Ro*Tel tomatoes with the purchases of three avocados from Mexico.

"There will be three different ways consumers can access the coupon," said Hall. "We will be doing a national FSI (free standing insert) distribution on Sept. 21 sent to 40 million households."

Consumers will also be able to get the coupon on their smart phone by text, which Hall called a first for the produce industry.

In addition, there will be instant coupons available at many retail outlets as part of an Avocados from Mexico/ConAgra Foods joint display. Hall said the merchandising campaign for retailers will include a display contest featuring point-of-sale material highlighting the co-branding nature of the promotion. Special bins have also been developed that allow for joint displays of avocados from Mexico and Ro*Tel tomatoes.

The publicity campaign will include recipe releases to food industry publications as well as print advertising in such popular magazines as Sunset, Cooking Light and Food & Wine. These publications appeal to the same demographic that AFM is targeting in its other promotional campaigns.

Though the college football portion of the campaign with ConAgra will end with the conclusion of the regular college football season in mid-December, Avocados from Mexico will continue to use a football theme to promote avocados into the new year, concluding with the Super Bowl on Feb. 1, 2015, in Phoenix.

Hall said Super Bowl Sunday is one of the top avocado consumption days of the year, and AFM will continue with its football-themed promotions through the college bowl season in December and January, and the National Football League playoffs. The details of those promotions have not yet been revealed.