Marketing snapshot - Hortlink 2017, edition 2

This Hort Innovation Macadamia Fund marketing snapshot has been taken from Hort Innovation’s Hortlink 2017, edition 2.

Since the last edition of Hortlink, a host of macadamia marketing highlights have been delivered across multiple platforms and markets using the macadamia marketing levy.

CONSUMER CAMPAIGNS

Consumer campaigns since February have included...

Chinese New Year activity

As an important cultural holiday, Chinese New Year is used to engage fans in China and Taiwan to make Australian macadamias part of the celebratory conversation.

• In China, a new beauty influencer video promoting health, beauty and origin messaging attracted more than 344,000 views and strong engagement (you can watch the video on the Chinese-language Australian Macadamias page here)
• Beauty blog posts and display ads on mobile apps also helped drive awareness in China throughout the holiday period
• In Taiwan, consumers were engaged with Facebook activity that tapped into traditional Taiwanese Chinese New Year customs. This included a Facebook game that invited fans to choose their favourite New Year macadamia-fruit combination and send it as a greeting to friends for a chance to win a prize. A second game invited fans to choose a red envelope to reveal a New Year blessing that could be shared with a friend for the chance to win a prize. There was a collective reach of 182,500 Taiwanese consumers and more than 25,000 engagements on the posts.

More information on this activity was prepared for the Australian Macadamia Society website here.

Macadamia media famil

In March, journalists from a range of Australia’s most popular food, lifestyle and news titles were hosted at a ‘media famil’ in the Northern Rivers.

• Journalists experienced the many facets of the macadamia industry first-hand over two days
• The itinerary included on-farm experiences, grower interviews, a farmers’ market tour, cooking demonstration, macadamia fine dining and beauty experiences
• Articles have already appeared in The Australian newspaper and in Nourish magazine as a result of the famil, and more long-form media is expected in the coming months.

You can read more about the famil here.

Japanese ‘Macadamia Experience’ event

Held in in Tokyo in March, this was a promotional event targeting health- and beauty-conscious Japanese women.

• The intimate gourmet-themed event was attended by 35 influential macadamia fans, with special guest Aoi Kinoshita, a popular Japanese nutritionist
• Aoi led a hands-on gourmet macadamia cooking demonstration

Australian ‘Easter Happiness’ competition

During April, an Easter themed competition was run for domestic Australian Macadamias social media fans. It was the campaign’s most successful competition ever in this market.

• Fans had the chance to win one of 10 1kg chocolate-covered macadamia prize packs
• The campaign also promoted a free Sweet Temptations e-recipe book, featuring 10 macadamia recipes. Available here, the book was downloaded 1226 times during the promotion
• The activity delivered on its primary objective of growing the consumer email database, achieving 3770 new subscribers and growing the database by 30 per cent to 15,500
• There were some 5570 competition entries received
• The Easter promotion posts collectively reached over 58,585 people of Facebook, and grew the Australian Macadamias Facebook page by 505 new fans.

TRADE MARKETING ACTIVITY

Funded by Hort Innovation using the macadamia marketing levy, the Australian Macadamias trade newsletter, The Macadamia Review, continued to perform solidly across all databases globally, with a broad range of original content showcasing all facets of the industry. Stories that gained strong traction in recent months included:

• Brookie’s Byron Dry Gin, a product innovation profile featuring an exclusive interview with distiller Eddie Brook. The gin is made from a range of Australian native botanicals, including macadamias.
• What’s on the menu with Samantha Gowing: the 4th instalment in this chef series, revealing what Samantha loves so much about macadamias, both as a celebrated chef and a nutritionist.

With the 2017 Australian Nut Conference delivering a host of exciting new nut health news, a special newsletter edition dedicated to health including these stories:

• The Mediterranean diet: looking at the array of positive mental and physical health outcomes attributed to following this diet with a handful of nuts daily
• The food allergy challenge: an article looking at significant changes to the way food allergies are handled, including the abandonment of the nut-free school policy
• New general level health claim: for the first time, producers of nut products will now be able to communicate that nuts are heart-healthy on product packaging and in advertising.

If you would like to receive The Macadamia Review monthly e-newsletter, you can subscribe using the gold ‘sign up’ button at the bottom right of the industry’s trade page.

• Online exposure pre- and post-event across Australian Macadamias channels, plus channels of partnering websites, Aoi Kinoshita and event guests, saw macadamia messaging reach 770,000 people.

Read more about the event here.