Marketing snapshot - September 2018

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the avocado marketing levy into a range of activities to grow awareness and consumption, under the Hort Innovation Avocado Fund. Here's a look at some of the most recent activity…

The new avocados marketing campaign 'Smash an Avo' has continued in the second half of 2018 building on the successes so far in focusing on health and wellness, versatility and ease of use of the fruit, with a play on the iconic cultural position of avocados and the connection Aussies have to the fruit.

Television advertising

TV plays a key role in driving mass awareness of campaign communications, ensuring key messages for Australian Avocados are established at scale. Burst two of the campaign kicked off in early September, with Australian Avocados securing spots within the Ten networks’ flagship programs including:

• The Bachelor - average audience of +800,000 viewers per episode
• The Block - average audience of +1 million viewers per episode
• Survivor - average audience of +700,000 viewers per episode

These major programmes were bolstered by the networks’ news and current affairs programming, with subscription television (i.e. Foxtel) providing further reach. The TV campaign continued until the end of October.

Digital

Digital advertising plays an important role by tapping into the fragmented viewing behaviours across different websites such as catch-up TV services, YouTube and music platforms such as Spotify.

Burst two of the campaign was designed to support the TV campaign, with Australian Avocados digital activity running across August and September. The strategy consisted of Australian Avocados’ standard 15 and 30 second ads across catch up television, YouTube 6-second bumpers as well as a Spotify 15 second audio spot. All channels achieved above bench mark results and KPIs during the campaign period.

The catch-up TV strategy was a great success with over 974,000 impressions (views), 80% of users seeing the campaign and a 92% completion rate, meaning that they watched the ad until the end. Spotify had an audio completion rate of 88% with 160,000 impressions, whilst YouTube served over 2,290,000 impressions with a 92% completion rate.

The digital campaign has delivered above its KPIs through strategic use of current digital trends such as popular catch up TV shows as well as live events such as the NRL Final Series which was broadcast live and free on the 9Now app.

Out of home

Out of home advertising plays a key role in driving a frequent reminder of key messages, prompting the audience to consider and act.

Retail

After the success of the first burst of out of home retail activity involving three different meal ideas shown on TV screens at select shopping centres across Australia, a second burst was run between August and September. To inspire consumers almost at the point of purchase, campaign material showing enticing food ideas with avocado as the hero were used to encourage shoppers to 'smash an avo' to 'make sangas better’, ‘make desserts better’ and ‘make salads better’ – with the overarching campaign message that ‘avos make everything better’. As well as delivering inspiration and a purchase reminder, the materials pointed consumers to the Australian Avocados website.

Australian Avocados were booked on a total of 336 screens nationwide across a variety of shopping centres to target grocery buyers aged 25-54. The activity reached over 3 million people an average of 5.3 times. These placements were crucial as a last point of contact for the buyers before they purchase.

Gym

The same advertising also appeared on panels in 260 gyms with over 2.7 million-member visits within the campaign duration. The screens served out over 7.4 million views. The TV ad also appeared on screen within the Anytime Fitness TV Network across 300 gyms, which had a total of 2.3 million-member visits and was played over 300,000 times. Across Fitness First gyms, the tv ad was played over 68,000 times on 1822 landscape TVs reaching over 5,270,000 gym users with a frequency of 2.4 visits across July. Australian Avocados also received a bonus full-page ad in the July/August issue of Fitness First magazine and a 1-page editorial piece focused on why avocados are a necessity in your nutrition.  This magazine is circulated within 60 gyms nationally and has a readership of 116,000.

Social media

The ‘always on’ approach to social media for the industry has continued, ensuring avocados remain top of mind for consumers.  In September, Australian Avocados Facebook activity reached over 570,000 Australians, delivered 1.2 million impressions and achieved the highest number of organic impressions (495,500) for the past 12 months.

The unconventional burger post, with avocado as its buns, sparked a lively conversation, generating 4,000+ comments. The unusual sight prompted nearly 1,000 people to share it with their own community, demonstrating the ‘talkability’ of the post. This post afforded Australian Avocados a great opportunity to engage with its fans in a light-hearted way with follow up comments.

Public relations

To celebrate 25-years of smashed avocado in Australia, Australian Avocados collaborated with Ambassador Bill Granger to create the new avocado dish of 2018.

The dish was communicated to media, alongside a beautifully designed Australian Avocado infographic timeline and a series of new avo-dishes. Three new exclusive recipes were photographed for Australian Avocados to offer to media as ongoing content that celebrates 25 years of ‘smashed avo’. The recipes were developed to showcase the versatility of avocados. The PR program reached over 12 million Australians, well exceeding the aim of 8 million.