Finding ways to get consumers thinking about Idaho potatoes is something at which the Idaho Potato Commission excels, as evidenced by everything from award-winning websites and wildly popular television ads to the national road tours of The Big Idaho Potato Truck, soon to enter its fourth year, which draws crowds and attracts media coverage everywhere it goes.

The commission’s sponsorship of Boise State and University of Idaho football and its title sponsorship of the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl keep the Idaho potatoes message in front of vast audiences throughout the football season.

But an unexpected success was a New Year’s Eve event in Boise, ID, last year that drew a crowd of 40,000 people in downtown Boise and got national news coverage. Just as New York City drops a large ball in Times Square to mark the arrival of the new year, Boise lowered a giant potato that reached the ground on the stroke of midnight, bringing cheers from a delighted crowd.

Video clips of the big Idaho potato descending on New Year’s Eve 2013 were aired nationally in company with pictures of New Years Eve activities around the world.

If Boise “had dropped anything other than a potato, it wouldn’t have been news,” said Frank Muir, president of the Idaho Potato Commission. “But everybody is in on it. They all understand the humor connected to it, and they like it.”

The New Year’s Eve potato drop is “something we did for the very first time this past year, and we had over 40,000 people there, and we are going to make it even bigger this coming year.” The plan is to drop it off the tallest building in Boise. Local TV will be broadcasting in advance of the drop, like pregame coverage, Muir said. The stations “will be sending those feeds to their national counterparts, as they did last year. No doubt, we will get picked up again.”

It is “one of those serendipitous things that ended up being huge,” he said.

Few things can top the success of the Big Idaho Potato Truck tour as a publicity generator, however, as everywhere the truck goes, it not only gets local media coverage but onlookers snap pictures and share them on social media. The commission has decided to extend the campaign for another two years and has created a new television ad inspired by the tour that will be carried on national cable TV from October into January.

The Idaho Potato Commission has been supportive of numerous good causes ranging from Meals on Wheels to the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign. Two years ago, the commission got involved as a sponsor of RODS Racing, a charitable organization that raises money to find homes in the United States for children from around the world born with Down syndrome. “It has grown” to where 150 “elite runners” are participating. They have run in some 500 races around the country wearing T-shirts that read “Fueled by Famous Idaho Potatoes.”