Marketing snapshot - 2020/21

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the custard apple marketing levy into a range of activities to drive awareness and consumption of the fruit, under the Hort Innovation Custard Apple Fund. Read on for a snapshot of activities and results from the 2020/21 marketing program.

Recipie development

The custard apple marketing program included a collaboration with content creator Marie Duong (@eatswithmarie) to develop a new suite of custard apple inspired dessert recipes and images that tapped into the latest dessert trends. These recipes were showcased on the Custard Apples Australia Facebook page (www.facebook.com/custardapplesaustralia) to excite and inspire followers.

The recipes included a custard apple, cacao and peanut butter porridge, a custard apple and coconut ice cream sandwich, and a custard apple and cinnamon galette. The content that featured Marie’s recipes performed well with a reach of 228,000 people and 3,079 engagements with the content (for example, likes, shares, comments and reactions). This activity accounted for 32 per cent of the total engagements achieved for the 2020/21 social media campaign.

Social media

Facebook was used to inspire and educate consumers about Australian custard apples. Content was posted once a week over the campaign period, positioning custard apples as ‘deliciously nutritious’, ‘deliciously sweet’ and ‘deliciously Aussie’. The posts focused on increasing the appeal of the fruit through demonstrating their versatility, nutritional profile and different ways of using them. Facebook advertising was used to boost performance on all posts to extend the reach and engagement.

The Custard Apples Australia Facebook page performed well, delivering over 847,000 opportunities for people to see the content with an average engagement rate of four per cent. Both these results exceeded the KPIs set for the campaign.

Digital mobile media

The objective of digital mobile media activity was to reach new consumers, by prompting consumers to pick up Australian custard apples on their shopping trip. This advertising format is able to target specific shoppers at specific stores, which translates to greater spend effectiveness.

Media advertisements were rolled out with Shopfully, a mobile catalogue application, which has over 1.9 million active monthly users. With traditional sampling not an option due to COVID-19 restrictions, digital mobile media was an effective way to reach shoppers.

Shopfully users received information about Australian custard apples through proximity notifications when a shopper is near a store, banners when they are on the Shopfully app and pop-ups that appear when viewing catalogues in the app.

Digital mobile media activity generated over 81,000 impressions during the campaign, versus a KPI of 75,000. The click-through rate across all three advertisements remained in line with or greater than industry benchmarks.

Woolworths had the highest walk-through rate (16 per cent) during the campaign and the highest number of store entrances at 3,932. The walk-through rate is a measurement of how many people entered a retailer once receiving a branded communication from Australian custard apples – demonstrating that the mobile advertisements are driving people to store.