Marketing snapshot - Hortlink 2018, edition 2

This Hort Innovation Banana Fund marketing snapshot has been taken from Hort Innovation’s Hortlink 2018, edition 2.

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the banana marketing levy into a range of activities to drive purchase frequency, under Hort Innovation Banana Fund.

For the 2017/18 financial year, a key focus has been to reinforce advertising at key times or ‘moments’ across key formats during the day, driving high frequency reminders about bananas in morning, mid-morning and early afternoons periods.

Television advertising

TV has played a key role in driving mass awareness of communications, ensuring Australian Bananas key messages are firmly established at scale.

The latest bananas TV campaign began in March and finished on April 21, seeing goals around campaign reach hit in every market.

The two bursts of activity coincided with peak periods for both Channel Nine and Ten, with the final weeks of popular programs and the launch of strong-performing new ones.

The campaign kicked off with a bang with spots in Married at First Sight, the ratings juggernaut for Nine, with the grand finale reaching more than two million people and being the number one program across all key demographics.

This was coupled with Channel Ten’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, with the finale corresponding with launch of the Australian Bananas TV activity and a national spot secured as Fiona O Laughlin pipped Shannon Noll for the show’s title.

Spots were also secured in the launch week of The Voice after a two-week TV campaign hiatus over Easter, with the initial ‘blind audition’ episodes averaging more than one million viewers nightly.

The addition of consistently performing programs including news and entertainment programs (The Project, Nine News, A Current Affair etc) as well as subscription TV activity all helped to drive exposure to audiences.

Out of home advertising

Out of home advertising has an important role in driving a frequent reminder of key messages, prompting the audience to consider and act. Within out of home, there are several segments that Australian Bananas messaging has been splashed across, including advertising panels in retail settings, banners across public transport including buses and trains, large-format billboards and in-gym advertising, described in earlier editions of Hortlink. For the retail activity alone, Australian Bananas messaging cumulatively reached more than 5,613,700 Australians.

Public relations (PR)

With this financial year drawing to a close, since July 2017 there have been more than 130 pieces of Australian Bananas coverage across print, online and social media, bringing the cumulative audience reach to more than 29,594,970 consumers.

During April this year, a second lot of six healthy recipes were pitched to health, food and lifestyle media. Coverage highlights include content in Canberra Weekly’s Taste section (seen by 96,400 readers), several pieces of recipe content on Nine Kitchen, a smoothie bowl recipe on Beauty and Lace (which has a readership of 10,000) and content on The Carousel.

In line with the start of the NRL season, there was work with long-time Australian Bananas ambassador Billy Slater to position bananas at the heart of healthy diets, securing a four-page feature in the May edition of top tier health publication Men’s Health, which reaches some 538,000 readers.

Ahead of World Digestive Health Day on May 29, there was also work with ambassador Susie Burrell to develop content focused on the topic ‘How to Build a Healthy Gut’, positioning bananas as an essential source of dietary fibre and prebiotics. This content was pitched to health and lifestyle media, with coverage secured with The Daily Mail Australia’s Femail section here (with a potential reach of 3,258,000 readers) and also across Susie’s blog, Shape Me.

Retail activity: Lady Finger consumer education

As mentioned in the last Hortlink, in March a campaign to promote and encourage trial and purchase of Australian Lady Finger bananas was deployed, involving in-store sampling across major retailers nationally. Two Lady Finger recipes were created and sampled – banana, yoghurt and muesli for the morning, and banana pavlova for the afternoon. Overall, 258 sessions were completed reaching out to 43,353 consumers. There were 27,824 samples distributed. The sessions were also an opportunity to gain shopper feedback, with 91 per cent of consumers saying they feel more positive about Lady Finger bananas after the experience, and 79 per cent reporting that they would tend to buy Lady Finger bananas in addition to other varieties.

Other activity

• Online advertising has continued to help tap into the Australian Bananas audiences’ screen behaviour and to extend campaign activities cost effectively. At the time of writing, the latest digital campaign involving display ads and video placements had recently concluded. Results were still being analysed, but earlier in the campaign a reach of some four million people was reported.

• The Australian Bananas Facebook page continues to post content that resonates with the consumer target audience, regularly reaching over 1.2 million people each month.

• Australian Bananas continued to provide support and gain exposure through events. During February, March, April and May, 5500 bananas were supplied for the Weet-Bix Kids TRYathlon series held across the country, from Sydney and Melbourne to Brisbane and Townsville. More than 13,750 participants took part in the series, and close to 27,200 spectators also attended. Bananas were handed out at the breakfast tent and included in bowls of Weet-Bix given to participants.

Coming up there will be the roll-out of a new three-year marketing plan, designed to contribute to sustainable demand for Australian bananas.