Marketing snapshot - Hortlink 2017, edition 3

This Hort Innovation Onion Fund marketing snapshot has been taken from Hort Innovation’s Hortlink 2017, edition 3.

Hort Innovation invests the onion marketing levy into a range of activities to drive awareness and consumption, under the Hort Innovation Onion Fund. These activities revolve around the industry’s Secret Serve campaign.

A quick look at recent activity…

• In-store demonstrations. The Secret Serve campaign saw winter in-store demonstrations and sampling opportunities, run in conjunction with the Australian mushroom industry, in over 240 Coles, Woolworths and independent grocery stores. There was a focus on hearty winter recipes such as spaghetti bolognese. In-store activity has been one of the key components in the marketing mix to expose the Secret Serve campaign to consumers.

• Onion health report. As reported in the last edition of Hortlink, the Secret Serve campaign released an onion health report in conjunction with campaign ambassador and nutritionist Kathleen Alleaume. Detailing the benefits of onions, the report achieved excellent results and well-exceeded set targets, with widespread media coverage across radio, print and social media. There were more than 80 pieces of media coverage, reaching some 16.8 million people.

• New advocate and e-book. The Secret Serve has been working closely with newly appointed advocate Scott Gooding. Recipes have been created with Scott to help create an e-book with a focus on ‘multi meals’ (one cook for three dishes) to help make life easier for home cooks, and to make it easy to add an extra serve of vegetables into the family diet, while encouraging families and kids aged four to 12 to eat more onions. The e-book, free for consumers to download, was launched on August 29 and at the time of writing, initial results were pending. The marketing team will be on-hand to discuss the e-book further at the Onions Australia conference during October.
  
  
• Social media. The Secret Serve has started ramping up its social media presence in a shift away from the in-store campaign. Facebook and Instagram are the focus of this activity, which will bring the Secret Serve to a lively community of onion-keen consumers, who will be able to share their own recipes and ideas and help build the Secret Serve Society. The Facebook page currently has over 19,400 ‘fans’ and all aspects of the social campaign moving forward will have a focus on downloads of the new e-book and on driving reach and engagement with relevant and inspiring ideas that make people want to go and purchase onions.