Marketing snapshot - September 2018

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the lychee marketing levy into a range of activities to grow awareness and consumption, under the Hort Innovation Lychee Fund.

Heading into the second year of a three-year marketing plan, the focus is to lift consumption of Australian lychees throughout the peak season by using social media to drive inspiration and traditional media (via PR) to educate consumers about lychees. Consumers are generally unfamiliar with lychees due to competition with other tropical fruit over the summer season and a perception that they are expensive. The campaign focuses on overcoming these barriers and highlighting the delicious taste.

Social media

Social media is a cost-effective way to reach the public and the Aussie Lychees Facebook already has 24,000 fans that can be communicated with on a regular basis. The same content strategy used in the first year of this campaign will continue to ensure consistency and build on the great results already achieved. There will be a focus on celebrating ‘Summer Time’, ‘Me Time’ and ‘Party Time’ as well as the following ‘pillars’ which all social media content will be guided by:

• Ideas on how to use lychees – always fresh, focus on entertaining etc
• Lychees as art – encouraging consumers to share content of beautiful platters, fruit salad spreads and artfully designed cocktails
• #Lycheelife – fun facts about lychees, brain teasers, votes to get people to engage with posts

An additional focus will be brought into the strategy – that lychees are the perfect platter partner. This will be used to secure high reaching media and social coverage as entertaining platters are currently very on trend, with the hashtag #plattergoals used in 17,000 posts on Instagram alone.

Consumers will be invited to share their own platters that feature lychees by sharing content that includes the hashtags #lycheelove and #perfectplatterpartner. To encourage people to get involved, a prize will be offered to the best platter creation. Facebook and Instagram will be used to call for entries and the campaign will be kicked off with a post created by a social media influencer to promote engagement. This competition will not only engage and inspire the target audience, it will also provide a collection of great content that can be re-purposed on the Aussie Lychee channels.

Consumers love seeing posts from the farm; it connects them to the product, and they can see the hard work that goes into getting a lychee from the farm to them. If you have any pictures you are happy to share, please send through to the Lychee Marketing Manager. A guide has been created with some hints and tips for taking good photos, please also get in touch if you would like to receive this. You don’t need to be a professional photographer, all you need is your phone!

Public relations

Contact with key Australia media outlets will be made to help drive education and inspiration through high-reaching coverage of Australian lychees. This will involve circulation of a media release announcing the season, plus the provision of tips for selecting, storing and peeling lychees, and inspiring ideas for eating them. Ten top tier media outlets will receive hampers announcing the season that will include fresh lychees, a serving platter, media materials and an invitation to receive a platter styled by a social influencer to cater for their office drinks in December. The goal of the campaign is to reach people with lychee content over 2.4 million times across social and traditional media.

Full results will be reported on at the conclusion of the campaign after the season ends.