Marketing snapshot - Hortlink 2016, spring

This Hort Innovation Avocado Fund marketing snapshot has been taken from Hort Innovation’s Hortlink 2016, spring edition.

To encourage the purchase of more avocados, more often, the marketing strategy for the industry involves the use of multiple communications channels to extol the flavour, health benefits and versatility options for avocados.

One of the key objectives within the strategy is to reduce the focus on price, which can be a barrier to usage, and build the versatility message instead, demonstrating more avocado meals ideas for different occasions and eating times.

Marketing activity also has a focus on continuing to educate consumers on choosing fruit at different stages of ripeness, and providing tips on ripening and storage at home.

Social media

Social media activity has had a continued focused on delivering great recipes across a number of meal occasions in both cooler and warmer weather settings.

With a highly engaged audience, there has been more and more user-generated content, recipe tips and/or improvements being shared in the comments section of posts on the Australian Avocados Facebook page (www.facebook.com/AustralianAvocados/), showing how much fans want to share how they love to consume Australian avocados.

During August, the social campaign reached over 850,000 people – almost double that for the same time last year. Of those 850,000 people, over 196,000 people ‘liked’, commented on, or shared the content.

Some of the best-performing content included a ‘Lemon Avocado Meringue’ video, which had over 120,000 total engagement.

The page’s next-best performing content was an ‘Avocado, Salami & Semi-Dried Tomato Focaccia’ ad, which put an Italian twist on a comfort food favourite, the toastie.

In third place, a ‘Beef Mince and Avocado Pizza’ made mouths water. By keeping with the ‘simple, delicious, droolworthy’ model, the post gave fans a delicious and filling yet extremely simple recipe with all of their favourite things… especially avocado!

September also had strong results in the social space, with October carrying on the trajectory.

Television campaign

A month of avocado television promotion kicked off the week commencing September 18, running until the week ending October 15.

September and October are among the most exciting months for television, with all networks bringing out some of the years’ strongest programming.

In the first week of the avocado campaign, the ad was featured in The Bachelorette across all metro markets. It was also featured in the launch of X Factor in four metro markets.

The Case of JonBenet Ramsey was the strongest-performing program in September. Avocados featured in the first episode in every metro market, which ended up being the number one program of the night, attracting a total audience of 1,282,000 people.

Outside of the JonBenet program, The Block was the strongest general entertainment program of the month. It consistently rates as the number-one program of the night for the avocado campaign’s main demographic (grocery-buying women aged 25 to 49), attracting a nightly audience of around 150,000 each episode. The avocado ad regularly appeared in the show, with at least one spot in every metro and regional market.

Outside of these key shows, the campaign also regularly appeared in reliable programming including Nine News, A Current Affair and 60 Minutes, as well as appearing across relevant food-based programming across the SBS Food Network.

The TV ad is also running across premium catch-up sites such as TEN Play and 9Now. Video is also targeted at sites that are consistent with the strategy to influence women, parents and those seeking healthy lifestyle options. This part of the campaign is due to finish on November 17.

Online

Between September 22 and December 21 this year, publisher Totally Her is featuring Australian Avocados in a content series titled #NeedMoreAvocados. The series will be broadcast across a collection of female-centric digital properties including Mumtastic, She Knows and The Fashion Spot.

In the initial weeks of activity, high-impact homepage take overs have started driving a strong result.

As part of the Totally Her package, Sneh Roy (@cookrepublic), a prominent Instagram foodie, ran a ‘30 days of Avocados’ campaign across her social channels for the month of October. This involved posting an avocado-themed post to her 130,000 followers every day of the month.

Using world-class keyword analysis and image recognition technology, Australian Avocados is also running ads across mobile and tablet, with the executions featuring where consumers are looking in related areas. GumGum is a platform that delivers adverts in this way. Activity has started particularly strongly, with an extremely high click-through rate in the first two weeks of activity.

YouTube Trueview will also see avocado ads played either before or during video playback, adding incremental reach on top of the audience that has seen the TV commercial on free-to-air TV. This content will be served across video content that appeals to foodies, health and food buffs, cooking enthusiasts and family-focused audiences.

Avocado activity in the media

Avocados got a great plug on the ABC’s Gruen program on Wednesday September 28. One of the program’s panel members, Russel Howcroft, said of the avocado TV campaign: “It shows usage occasions, colour, it will create sales”.

The avocados mention followed a bigger question at the beginning of the show around why fresh fruit needs to advertise. The whole episode (series 8, episode 9) is available to watch here.

Perfect Match shortlisted in industry awards

The avocado industry’s Perfect Match campaign (rolled out earlier in 2016) has been shortlisted in Mumbrella’s BEfest Awards.

The annual BEfest Awards is the only awards program dedicated to recognising the best in branded entertainment in Australia and New Zealand, and this year saw a 43 per cent rise in entries.

The Perfect Match campaign is shortlisted in the category of ‘Best Use of Film Craft’, with the winners announced on November 10.