Marketing snapshot - Hortlink 2018, edition 1

This Hort Innovation Mango Fund marketing snapshot has been taken from Hort Innovation’s Hortlink 2018, edition 1.

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the mango marketing levy into a range of activities to grow awareness and consumption, under the Hort Innovation Mango Fund. Here’s a look at some of the most recent highlights…

Mango emoji success

The industry’s #MangoEmojiPlease social campaign, part of marketing activity in the Mango Fund as described in earlier Hortlinks, has led to success – with the fruit set to be immortalised in the form of an emoji (a picture used in social media and text messages).

Unicode, the worldwide authority for emojis, has announced that the mango emoji will be one of 157 new symbols released in June. The news garnered further publicity for mangoes, with more than 80 media outlets reporting the emoji news including ABC online, news.com.au, The Courier-Mail, 2DAY FM, Triple M, and Good Fruit and Vegetables. The news was also mentioned on radio stations ABC Brisbane, Hit 103.1 Townsville, 97.3 FM Brisbane and 2GB Sydney.

Social media and public relations activity

The 2017/18 campaign involves the hashtag #200DaysofMangoes, to remind consumers about the mango season and the endless possibilities of mangoes. Summer saw a bounty of mango recipes shared on social media, including on the Australian Mangoes Facebook page. In January and February alone, the hashtag was seen some 1.1 million times, and the Facebook content reached over 600,000 Australians.

In January, national coverage was secured on TODAY Extra on Australia Day, with a ‘cooking with mangoes’ segment. Chef and influencer Sarah Glover created summer barbecue recipes on a mango-filled set. Live on-air with hosts Sonia Kruger and Tim Davies, Sarah whipped up Mango and Barramundi Skewers as a savoury dish, followed with Juicy mangoes with Sweet Lime for dessert. The segment can still be viewed here.

Nearing the tail-end of the mango season, the campaign has been encouraging consumers to freeze their mangoes – and what better excuse to freeze a mango than for National Margarita Day in late February. A frozen mango margarita recipe was created and shared, including on 9Kitchen and Femail.

Grower interviews have also continued to take place across the season, with Peter Le Feuvre chatting to The Burdekin Advocate, Dale William featured in Rural Weekly and Jill Wilson interviewed by Northern Valley News.

Mangoes on YouTube

During the mango season, the marketing campaign worked with influencers on YouTube to produce organic content for their channels. One of the influencers was Tess Begg, who has more than 300,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel who look to her for fitness and food inspiration. Tess featured two mango recipes in her ‘What I Eat In A Day’ video.

The team also worked with channel Greg’s Kitchen, with Greg being of Australia’s most popular food video content creators, based on the Gold Coast. He re-created the campaign’s smoothie recipe here.

The latest influencer kits

Throughout January and February, a selection of social media influencers were sent fresh trays of mangoes as part of kits, to encourage the sharing of mango-related content in their channels. In January, Australia Kits were sent containing a picnic blanket, tongs, a drink cooler and a grilled lamb and mango recipe, alongside the fresh mangoes. In February, influencers were sent freezing kits to help spread the idea of freezing mangoes, with the season winding down. The kits included cocktail stirrers, ice-block makers and ice-cube moulds along with mangoes and mango popsicle and smoothie recipes.