This marketing update was prepared by Hort Innovation for the May 2019 edition of Persimmon Press, produced as part of the Hort Innovation Persimmon Fund investment Persimmon industry extension and communication program (PR16001)…

This year’s campaign supports the persimmon season by focusing on driving awareness and increasing the appeal of Australian persimmons by educating grocery buyers, food enthusiasts and health conscious consumers about the fruit. Key campaign messages include seasonal availability, tips on selection and storage, and ways to consume the fruit in simple, easy ways, particularly celebrating its snacking appeal.

Public relations

To announce the season, ten persimmon hampers that included a seasonal press release and a persimmon ‘tip sheet’ were distributed to top tier media and key influencers such as:

1. Woman’s Day
2. Best Recipes
3. Australian Women’s Weekly
4. My Body+Soul
5. New Idea
6. com.au
7. The Brown Paper Bag Nutrition
8. Healthy Eating Jo
9. Nourish Naturally
10. The Biting Truth

Excitingly, this produced immediate coverage via social media. To date, the hamper outreach has delivered a reach opportunity of 650k.

Public relations activities have continued throughout the season to secure more media articles promoting the fruit. Coverage from Female.com.au and Woman’s Day is now live, reaching 210k and 1.2m people respectively. Further persimmon media coverage is expected to go live from Canberra Weekly, and Body + Soul in the next few weeks.

Social media

The Persimmons Australia social media platforms are being leveraged this season to serve educational and inspiring information for new persimmon consumers and for the fruit to remain top of mind among persimmon advocates.

Below are the results as at end of April, with strong very engagement on the social posts that have gone live:

Joint In-store activation with Persimmon Australia and Custard Apples Australia

In addition to the PR and social media activities funded by the persimmon levy, Hort Innovation has also invested its funds to conduct a joint sampling campaign with persimmons and custard apples to capitalise on the autumn season (March and April).

The activation has taken place in Woolworths and Coles, targeting 50 stores across Sydney and Melbourne with each store being visited twice resulting in 100 sampling sessions.

This activation is a ‘test & learn’ initiative to:

• Understand the impact of instore sampling demonstrations on persimmon sales and consumer awareness
• Source refreshed shopper insights for persimmons to reference for future marketing plans moving forwards
• Determine the feasibility to ‘clustering’ marketing projects across smaller tropical industries such as Custard Apples and Persimmons to maximise marketing campaigns with limited budget.

By partnering with Woolworths and Coles for this project, this enables Australian Persimmons to access data on the targeted stores to review potential sales uplift by doing the sampling activity, an opportunity to train retail staff and ultimately, strengthening the relationship to keep Australian persimmons top of mind during the season.

At the upcoming Australian Persimmon Industry Conference, a full wrap up of all persimmon marketing activities for this season (PR, social, and instore sampling) will be presented, outlining results and key learning’s for future campaigns.

For any queries relating to the persimmon marketing program or specific information provided above, please email marketing@horticulture.com.au.