Marketing snapshot - 2018/19

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the lychee marketing levy into a range of activities to drive awareness and consumption of the fruit, under the Hort Innovation Lychee Fund. Read on for a snapshot of activities and results from 2018/19.

Public relations (PR)

Outreach to Australia media was used to help drive lychee awareness, education and inspiration through high-reaching coverage. This involved the distribution of a media release announcing the season, plus the provision of tips for selecting, storing and peeling lychees, and inspiring ideas for eating them, particularly as a feature in festive/party platters.

Lychee party platters created by well-known platter stylist The Platter Project were also sent to eight top tier media and foodie influencers in December 2018, together with media materials about the lychee season, usage ideas and images from existing campaign material.

A second round of media pitching was also completed around the Chinese New Year season, tapping into the popularity of lychees around this celebration. All media coverage carried key campaign messaging such as lychees being in season, content highlighting the taste and the ‘platter entertaining’ angle. Over the course of the campaign, 19 pieces of coverage were secured across traditional and social media, with a total reach of 2.67 million people.

Top tier outlets including Woman’s Day and The Herald Sun featured lychees in print, while Body+Soul and prominent foodie influencers including Nourish Naturally, Maddie Lumley, Sunkissed Kitchen and the Biting Truth shared lychee material on social channels.

Social media

Social media activity is a great tool for campaigns with a small budget, being a cost-efficient way to reach the public (an opportunity previously only available via ‘above the line’ media such as television and newspapers). It’s also a way to ‘keep a finger on the pulse’ in terms of how people are consuming lychees, to answer any questions they have, and to give people an opportunity to simply share their love of the fruit.

Using curated lychee content, the Aussie Lychee Facebook (www.facebook.com/aussielychees) and Instagram (@aussielychees) channels celebrated the summer season by featuring the delicious fruit, sharing lychee tips, providing insight into lychee growers, and promoting the key message of lychees as a #perfectplatterpartner. Over the course of the campaign, lychee social content was seen 1.1 million times by lychee fans and target consumers of Australian lychees.

To maximise the reach of the #perfectplatterpartner message and engage Australian lychee fans, a social competition was also run in January 2019. This encouraged consumers to share their own lychee platter creation along with why lychees are the #perfectplatterpartner to win a platter from The Platter Project. This competition helped to generate additional reach and gain quality lychee images to repurpose in the Aussie Lychee social channels for future campaigns.

Influencer campaign

Word of mouth remains an influential mechanism to target consumers, so in 2018/19 the Australian lychee marketing program partnered with TRIBE, an influencer platform, to connect with seven ‘micro-influencers’ to maximise consumer reach with inspiring lychee platter ideas. The influencers posted their take on a lychee platter during the month of February, reaching more than 160,000 people. The campaign maintained a strong engagement rate and a low cost per opportunity to see of $0.01.