Marketing snapshot - Hortlink 2016, spring

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

Television campaign

The most recent Australian Bananas TV campaign was aired from August 21 to September 18, with one 30-second and one 15-second spot being run across metro networks Seven, Nine and Ten, regional networks SCA, Prime, and WIN-NBN, and national network MCN (Foxtel).

The ads retained the iconic ‘Make Your Body Sing’ jingle and built on the successful theme of bananas as nature’s non-stop energy snack. They showed a fast-moving montage of people powering through their day thanks to the energy burst they get from bananas.

During the campaign period the networks had some of their strongest shows airing, with TV spots bought during The Block and Married At First Sight, which were the highest-rating programs for the campaign’s demographic. The campaign also regularly appeared during programs including Home & Away, Nine News, 60 Minutes and Australian Survivor to deliver consistent audience reach.

The TV campaign’s aim was to reach between 35 and 40 per cent of people aged 25 to 49 years at least three times over the period. This was delivered in all metro regions, and significantly over-delivered in regional areas, where the campaign reached as much as 65 per cent of the target audience at least three times.

Out-of-home advertising

To help drive frequency of message, an out of home campaign was also run.

• Bus panels (side and backs) featured from September 4 to 25 across five capital cities.
• For the first time ever, train panels were part of the advertising strategy. They were in effect from August 28 to October 30, with a total of 28 panels across Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne (the great news here is that the campaign received five weeks of bonus activity).
• Over a 12-week period, 471 panels were also placed in shopping centres in proximity to grocery stores. A percentage of these panels featured time-targeted creative, displaying campaign messaging relevant to the time of day (for example, ‘Got the mid-morning munchies?’).

Digital advertising (desktop, tablet and mobile phone advertising)

Digital advertising was run from August to October across desktop, tablet and mobile phone devices, to continue to drive awareness and extend campaign messaging.

This involved:

• Advertising spots across News Corp sites from August 15 to September 26, targeting health-conscious audiences and entertainment and lifestyle content, and delivering over 1.88 million impressions.
• Video advertising from August 15 to October 17, served to over 2.16 million people (with a strong result of, on average, over 78 per cent of people watching the ad through to completion).
• Advertising on mobile devices from August 15 to October 2, targeting mobile devices with less than 20 per cent battery and serving creative tailored to that experience of having low energy.
• GumGum activity, from August 15 to October 2. GumGum uses keyword and image-targeting technology to deliver highly visible and relevant advertising in a context where it is best received (for example, someone searching ‘smoothie recipes’ would be served a banana ad). The campaign achieved just under one million impressions and had a click-through rate well above the industry benchmark.
• An influencer campaign, involving 19 influential sports stars, active mums and foodies have posting about bananas on social media to keep bananas top of mind. This activity ran from August 15 to September 18, and had a reach of over 1.94 million consumers.

Social media

Across Facebook (www.facebook.com/AustralianBananas/) and Instagram (@australianbananas), the social media program continues to have a focus on four key ‘pillars’ of messaging content: fun fruit, energy/nutrition, a-peeling snacks and the growers behind the produce.

Using both organic and paid media, the campaign aims to reach at least one million consumers each month and continues to exceed this. In September, there was an organic reach of over 110,000 users and a paid reach of over 1.5 million – meaning plenty of eyes on the Australian Bananas’ great content including easy recipes, serving suggestions, video and animation, and footage direct from growers.

PR activity

The Australian Bananas PR strategy for 2016/17 has a focus on young families and people aged 25-39, encouraging them to snack on the fruit more frequently. Key objectives of the campaign are to:

• Build awareness of the health and nutrition benefits of bananas
• Maintain bananas as the country’s top snack food
• Encourage parents to include bananas in their families’ diets
• Drive regularity of consumption.

So far, Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian Glenn Cardwell has developed ‘15 reasons Australian Bananas are so A-pealing’. Along with 10 new banana recipes, this selection of tips will continue to be sent to key lifestyle, food, health and news media and bloggers throughout the year to drive coverage.

Susie Burrell has also been engaged as the Australian Bananas ambassador for the next two years. Susie is one of Australia’s leading dietitians who runs her own healthy eating blog and social media accounts with strong followings. She is regularly quoted in the media, and is a highly qualified authority to talk about the health credentials of Australian Bananas. Susie is developing blog and social posts, healthy recipes and other content for the PR campaign.

Susie has been doing an amazing job promoting bananas, so much so that over half a million people have already been reached with her activity and over half a million people with her bonus activity, like the below Halloween recipe –  that’s over one million consumers.

The PR campaign also involves an always-on, reactive press office for the first time. This means all mentions of bananas in traditional and social media channels are monitored and responded to accordingly. For example, when some of the Australian Olympic athletes mentioned during interviews that they included bananas as part of their training routine, they were supplied packs of banana merchandise to say thanks and to encourage continued support. And when a nutritionist in the US told people to beware of consuming bananas for breakfast, Glenn Cardwell developed an opinion article explaining why bananas are nature’s perfect food for breakfast, which was distributed to key media.

Australian Bananas events

» Little BIG DASH is a family-focused event where parents and kids aged five to 15 participate in an obstacle course together, held in three different states. Australian Bananas sponsored the breakfast tent at the Sydney event on August 19, with 6000 parents and kids taking part. All participants and supporters enjoyed a free breakfast, including plenty of fresh bananas. Australian Bananas also sponsored the breakfast tent at the Melbourne event on September 25 and at the Brisbane event on July 24.

» The Summer Fruit Festival, held in Sydney on October 27 to 30, celebrated the beginning of summer and promoted healthy living. Australian Bananas had a stand at the event, where consumers could come and taste a delicious banana smoothie, learn all about bananas, and take part in a fun ‘guess the weight of the bananas’ competition. Thank you to Mackays Marketing for supplying bananas, Tropicana for supplying the 61kg bunch of bananas for the competition, and Nutrano for the banana bunch stand.