Marketing spotlight 2021/22

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the avocado marketing levy into a range of activities to drive awareness and consideration. Here’s a quick look at some of the activities and achievements in 2021/22.

Domestic activity

Our Green Gold campaign

The ‘Our Green Gold’ campaign featured iconic avocado imagery and was led by brand talent Nazeem Hussain across various channels, including television, online video, outdoor displays, radio, digital displays, social media and media. The campaign achieved strong results:

• 69 per cent of main grocery buyers in the shopping vicinity were reached via out-of-home advertising
• 36 per cent of main grocery buyers were reached through television
• 8 per cent of main grocery buyers were reached through radio
• Social media advertising over-delivered across awareness and engagement metrics.

Public relations drove the campaign by building brand awareness and earned media across top-tier media outlets and channels with high reach.

The summer public relations campaign saw Australian Avocados partner with Hayden Quinn to ‘officially unofficially’ sponsor the great Australian barbeque by getting consumers to use avocados in new and exciting summer recipes. Australian Avocados released new avocado barbeque recipes and content and created a barbecue accessory range for key media and influencers.

It is estimated the activity reached 10.5 million consumers, with 100 per cent positive sentiment and key message retention was at 79 per cent. Earned media coverage included The Daily Telegraph, 9Honey, Lifehacker and the TODAY show.

For the love of Shepard avocado

To support the short-lived Shepard avocado season and drive demand for the varietal across the season, Australian Avocados partnered with iconic Sydney café, Cuckoo Callay to host Australia’s first Shepard avocado festival, ‘For the love of Shepard avocado.’ A series of new and delicious Shepard avocado recipes were created and highlighted the variety’s unique flavour, profile and texture.

For the launch, Australian Avocados invited key media and influencers to eat from the inventive and unexpected menu, using Australian Shepard avocados, developed in collaboration with Cuckoo Callay’s head chef. The recipes were shared online via Australian Avocado social media channels and website. This was to encourage Australians around the nation to try them at home after research revealed Australians are becoming more adventurous with their taste and are turning to their favourite cafes for inspiration.

Media covered was strong and positive, with content appearing in popular publications such as Daily Mail (reach 10.6 million), New Idea (reach 2.86 million), Broadsheet (reach 1.1 million) and Lifehacker (reach 880,000) and other outlets.

The public relations campaign created over 30 million opportunities to see the Shepard avocado-inspired content. The sentiment was 100 per cent positive, and message retention was 78 per cent for the two key messages around the versatility and unique qualities of Shepard avocados.

In addition to the earned activity, there was paid support across retail digital out-of-home advertising, radio and social media. Creative content and messaging specific to Shepard avocados were developed to highlight the fruit’s unique attributes, taste and texture, creating a strong call to action to purchase.

For radio, Australian Avocados partnered with Nova Network, with Kate, Tim and Joel delivering live reads that highlighted and educated their audience on the benefits and attributes of the Shepard avocado variety. This activity reached 35 per cent of main grocery buyers aged 25 to 34, an average of three times. Out-of-home advertising targeted consumers by providing new, delicious recipe content to consumers as they entered the grocery store. This activity had a higher reach than anticipated, with 66 per cent of grocery shoppers seeing the content across 592 panels in proximity to retailers.

Hass is back

With Hass avocados returning to supermarket shelves, the ‘Our Green Gold’ campaign was used to create excitement for the variety, increase awareness and inspire consumption and purchase.

The campaign utilised television, broadcast video on demand, large format outdoor printing, outdoor retail strategies, online video, retailer media and social media to reach the full spectrum of main grocery buyers.

Following the success of the Tokyo Olympics partnership in 2021, Australian Avocados leveraged a media package with the Commonwealth Games in 2022. This extended the ‘Green Gold’ message and built an emotional connection with the product amongst consumers by linking it to an Australian cultural passion – sport.

Australian Avocados achieved high viewership through premium advertising placements and incremental audience reach with this partnership. Australian Avocados received spots across 64 metro and five capital city channels, reaching an audience of 2.4 million across free-to-air TV and one million impressions across 7Plus catch-up television.

AVOccasion shopper campaign

To drive the perception of avocados as everyday food across different meal occasions and get shoppers to add an extra avocado to their basket, a new shopper campaign, ‘AVOccasion’, was launched. The campaign intended to showcase avocados’ versatility and inspire consumers to add avocado to any meal at any time of the day to improve it.

Cubery creative testing was completed on the impact and effectiveness of the new ‘AVOccasion’ campaign, and the results were the highest performing to date compared to the Hort Innovation benchmark.

Findings indicate the campaign brought to life the avocados’ key product benefits in an engaging way. Consumers’ impressions of avocados were found to be ‘exciting’ and a product they could use across various meal occasions. Overall, the campaign generated a strong inclination to consume Australian avocados.

Activity and tactics for the 2022 shopper campaign included:

• Woolworth’s front-of-store digital and search online digital display advertisements. These touchpoints inspired shoppers by displaying a range of ‘AVOccasion’ recipes across key meal occasion times and relevant messages on their final path to purchase to highlight the versatility of avocados as consumers shopped. The audience was targeted with content cards, banners, recipes, the creative featured ‘AVOccasion’ messaging, and shoppers were inspired to add avocados to their virtual basket.
• Co-branded partnerships to keep Australian avocados top of mind on the shopper journey. Australian Avocados worked with retailers to identify strong cross-category opportunities. This enabled avocados to be with leading mainstream food brands, which drove inspiration and versatility across usage occasions. Some examples include Australian Avocados and Tostitos (Mexican cuisine usage), Australian Avocados and Mission (lunch occasion), Australian Avocados and Bertocchi (breakfast occasion), and Australian Avocados and Australian Pork (everyday meal usage). The activity involved the inclusion of Australian Avocados branding across various in-store and online touchpoints and the development of new inspirational recipe content.
• Metcash in-store displays for proximity and impact. Following the success of 2021’s ‘Our Green Gold’ display competition, Australian Avocados challenged IGA stores to make avocado displays during July and August into an ‘AVOccasion’ for their chance to win a prize. Campaign point of sale kits with ‘AVOccasion’ posters, shelf tickets, shelf strips, recipe tear pads, educational materials and tip sheets were provided to stores to assist with dressing up displays.

In 2021/22 the Hort Innovation Marketing function underwent a significant shift in their approach to investing marketing levies. You can read more about this in the 2021/22 Hort Innovation Company Annual Report at www.horticulture.com.au/annual‑report‑portal.

Export activity

Japan

In 2021/22, the Taste Australia avocado program was extensive and was positively received by industry stakeholders. Despite the numerous challenges, including delays in shipment and implementation of robust retail promotions on shorter notice, the season achieved good sales results. COVID-19 also impacted the program as the initial plan was to implement several in-store demonstrations, such as passing out samples for customers to experience the premium taste of Australian avocados. The COVID-19 pandemic made traditional in-store demonstrations challenging, so the campaign’s focus shifted to passive retail promotions, and part of the budget was allocated to food service promotions. In summary, activities undertaken in Japan included:

• Participation in trade shows
• Retail program (including in-store display and promotions)
• Foodservice promotions
• Trade and media seminar
• Social media support and influencer engagement.

Singapore and Malaysia

The ‘Fall in Love with Aussie Avocados’ campaign kicked off in Singapore and Malaysia at the beginning of June 2022. The campaign featured Australian Avocados branded content, appealing to a clearly defined target audience with a strong call to action to purchase Australian avocados.

The campaign featured a light-hearted and quirky video about a story of a person who daydreams about Australia after they taste an Australian avocado. The video features avocado usage across many consumption occasions, featuring the Australian scenery and lifestyle. Avocado recipes featured well-known Australian ingredients and flavour combinations to connect Australian avocados to the Australian lifestyle, inspiring consumers to eat Australian avocados.

The campaign featured on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Cable TV, with advertisements running during the Australian MasterChef program that streamed across Singapore and Malaysia.