Marketing spotlight 2021/22

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the banana 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.

In 2021/22, a new brand campaign for Australian Bananas was launched, where the task was to develop an enduring, engaging, and disruptive campaign that reinforced the fruit’s natural energy and communicated how versatile bananas are at fueling consumer’s passion. Targeting ‘main grocery buyers’ from 25 to 54 years of age, the campaign reminded Australians that bananas are a great source of natural energy to help them do the things they love, no matter the task.

The media strategy focused on maximising reach and frequency of message, with activities that built Australian Bananas association with energy. Public relations was used to connect to key cultural moments such as ‘back to school’ in January, as well as National Banana Day on 1 May 2022. Since January 2022, over 24 million Australians have been reached by Australian Bananas advertising. All KPI’s for reach, frequency and opportunities to see banana key messages were met or exceeded.

Television

In February 2022, Australian Bananas launched 30-second and 15-second advertisements across Networks Seven and Ten, with the objective of driving broad awareness of key campaign messages. Appearing during top performing programs such as Gogglebox, Australian Bananas were able to reach a total of 2.5 million grocery buyers aged 25-54 years old, at least once.

Supporting the free-to-air television buy, Australian Bananas advertisements also aired on on-demand TV, to drive broad awareness, increase consideration of bananas and reach lighter TV viewers. 

Targeting consumers aged 25-45 with video placements across 7Plus and 10Play, the campaign delivered over three million impressions (number of times the ad has been shown) with 99 per cent of viewers watching the advertisement to completion.

Out of home

Australian Bananas out of home activity generated broad awareness of the Australian Bananas message by selecting panels positioned near supermarkets and within supermarkets, to ensure bananas were at the front of shopper’s mind as they entered the store. Currently, the campaign has delivered a total of 2,013 advertising panels, with 594 ‘bonus’ panels. The advertising reached 85 per cent of grocery buyers aged 25-54 in the retail outlets, an average of 16 times, which totals to 3.4 million grocery buyers.

Radio

Radio advertisements featuring the iconic ‘make your body sing’ song was used to keep Australian Bananas at the front of consumers’ minds throughout the day-especially during the key snacking periods of morning and afternoon. Nova, Smooth, HIT and Triple M networks were selected based on a high index with target audiences, as well as lowest cost per reach across Australian metropolitan markets. In total, bananas radio advertisements have reached over 9.58 million Australians.

Social media and influencer partnerships

The objective of social media and influencer marketing is to entwine Australian Bananas into relatable daily occasions, to drive brand relevancy and habitual consumption. Across the Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok platforms, Australian Bananas reached people who are likely to consider bananas as a fruit of choice and reminded them to purchase. Bananas partnered with several social media influencers to extend the campaign’s reach, by leveraging their social media following to advocate bananas with both their own and the Australian Banana’s audiences. In total, Australian Bananas achieved 22.4 million opportunities to see the banana key messages, at an average engagement rate of 7.47 per cent on Facebook and Instagram, versus the food and beverage global average of less than 1 per cent.

Banana Grower Ambassador – Billy Slater

Billy Slater, a prominent professional rugby league player from Innisfail, continued his role as grower ambassador for Australian Bananas. Following a long-standing history in the role, Mr Slater has committed to promoting the nation’s favourite fruit and the people who grow it. The Melbourne Storm and Maroons star has previously fronted public relations campaigns, shared his love of the fruit on social media and attended the Banana Congress.

Public relations

To compliment the advertising message, three key public relations media moments were created to drive broad awareness of the banana key messages during key calendar moments.

Back to school

Australian Bananas encouraged parents to have conversations with their children about consuming bananas, through simple ways such as including a fun note with conversation starters in their child’s lunchbox.

Australian Bananas teamed up with Jessica Rowe and Susie Burrell to highlight that Australian Bananas are 100 per cent natural energy, providing the perfect fuel for back to school. The activity achieved 73 pieces of coverage and featured on top performing television programs such as Sunrise and high-reach publications such as The Daily Telegraph, News.com.au, and New Idea. Over 51.9 million opportunities to see the banana key message were generated through the coverage.

National Banana Day

National Banana Day was a day to celebrate and champion the mighty yellow fruit, and because there’s a banana to ‘make your body sing, whatever your thing’, Australian Bananas introduced a banana that literally makes Australians sing, ‘The Karaoke Banana’ which included a Spotify playlist of banana related songs.

Australian Bananas partnered with singer and entertainer Rob Mills and Paul Inderbitzin, as a banana grower ambassador. Australians were encouraged to get involved to ‘peel great,’ grab an Australian Banana, listen to the Karaoke Banana playlist on Spotify and sing to their favourite banana related song. A key highlight enjoyed and used widely by media was a video created featuring growers using their ‘Karaoke Banana’ to sing and dance along with the ‘Make Your Body Sing’ soundtrack.

In total the campaign achieved 105 pieces of coverage, generating over 131 million opportunities to see the banana key message.

Cost of living campaign

In response to negative media around increased cost of living, increased produce prices and low availability of fresh produce, Australian Bananas developed tactical public relations and social media campaign to promote Australian Bananas as an affordable, nutritious, and delicious way to address cost of living challenges. In total, the campaign created over 87 million opportunities for Australians to see the banana-inspired content, driven by a complementary mix of activities:

• Public relations: A partnership with Melissa Browne, an economist and financial expert, Far North Queensland Grower Paul Inderbitzin as a grower spokesperson, and Australian Bananas Dietician partner Michelle Theodosi. Ms. Browne and Mr. Inderbitzin shared key messages with media, demonstrating how bananas are great value and a nutritious way to fight the challenges to the household budget. Ms. Browne promoted recipes and key back-to-school messages, highlighting how bananas are great value, nutritious and a delicious snack for the children’s lunchboxes.
• Social media: A partnership with two key macro influencers, Chloe Dillon and Real Dads of Melbourne, to share the key campaign messages to extend the reach of message. Content was shared on both the influencers and Australian Bananas’ Instagram and Tik Tok channels.
• Recipe Creation: Four new recipes were developed and shared on Australian Bananas Instagram and Facebook pages, featured on the Australian Bananas website, and shared with media in line with key ‘Back To School’ timings.
• Point of Sale (POS) Materials: Posters were shared with retailers that re-enforced the message that bananas continue to represent great value.

School partnership with Healthy Harold

In January 2022, Australian Bananas partnered with Life Education (commonly known as Healthy Harold) to promote Australian Bananas in their nutrition program run throughout NSW schools. As part of the partnership which will continue until March 2023, bananas were endorsed as ‘Harold’s favourite fruit’, through a variety of activities:

• Updated decals on all mobile vans attending schools with Harold holding a banana
• Stickers received by 97,000 students in nutrition lessons
• Australian Banana posters inside the mobile vans
• Lesson content including bananas
• Two partnership articles on website (still to come)
• Logo inclusion on e-newsletters each month distributed to schools and parents
• A short video was compiled and shared across Facebook and Instagram for National Banana Day. Healthy Harold promoted the ‘Karaoke Banana’ and sun along to the ‘Make Your Body Sing’ jingle, which encouraged consumers to purchase bananas for National Banana Day.

Lady Fingers

From April to June 2022, Lady Finger Bananas were promoted through retail media and social media campaigns, to encourage trial and drive penetration. Across Woolworths and Coles, digital retail media created the following:

• Two new recipes featuring Lady Finger Bananas
• Two key consumer messages, ‘indulgent, sweet and creamy taste’ and ‘don’t brown once cut.’ The two messages were trialled to see what message resonated most with consumers for future campaign use.

In Woolworths, the Lady Finger Banana digital activity increased levels of trade with 33 per cent of corresponding purchases not purchased prior. ‘New Families’ and ‘Young Families’ groups were the majority of new customers (45 per cent), with ‘Middle-Aged Couples’ and ‘Singles’ the largest spenders of all life stages.

Of the two campaign messages, the ‘indulgent, sweet and creamy taste’ was the best performing across Woolworths media, generating 684 clicks to the product.

The new Lady Finger Banana recipes and key messages were also promoted on the Australian Bananas social media accounts (Facebook and Instagram) and were the best performing posts for the month of May, receiving a combined total of over 121,000 engagements (likes, comments, shares). They also had the highest engagement rate of 30.62 per cent (compared to an industry average of 2.5 per cent).

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.