A snapshot of the 2023/24 onion marketing campaign

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the onion marketing levy into a range of activities to drive awareness and consideration. Here is a quick look at what happened during 2023/24...  

The onion marketing plan was designed to increase awareness and encourage consumers to incorporate more onions into their daily meals. There were three strategic pillars set to achieve this objective:  

• Taste: Inspire onion usage across all meal occasions with delicious recipe inspiration.
• Ease: Drive ease and inspire time poor main grocery buyers with practical tips messaging around ease, versatility and storage.
• Health: Build health credentials with educational health messaging. 

Insights that drove our thinking 

• Providing tips alone will not drive demand – Onions play a critical role in building flavour in cooking. Consumers see onions as a convenient way to enhance both flavour and texture, more so than other vegetables. They understand that starting with onions is key to ‘proper cooking,’ and they want to do this as frequently as possible. Importantly, onions are seen as irreplaceable in the kitchen, with 37 per cent of consumers stating they have no substitute for onions in their cooking.
  
  
• Re-evaluating the role of onions is crucial – Onions have a strong presence at the dinner table, fulfilling key needs like being tasty and quick to prepare. However, main grocery buyers are predictable, often sticking to familiar dinner routines. Many consumers limit their onion use to basic flavour bases and are surprised when challenged to explore beyond a simple sauté. The biggest barrier for consumers is serving size, with many finding they need more onions than typically required compared to other vegetables. While onion penetration is strong, the key lies in encouraging consumers to buy and use onions more frequently by inspiring them to try new ways of incorporating them into meals. 

What the campaign looked like in market  

Onions are the underplayed overachiever. Healthy, easy, affordable and tasty, they deliver on flavour. The campaign positioned onions as a featured ingredient instead of just a base ingredient. A range of assets (video and still images) were created to help inspire and educate consumers, which were used in public relations and on social media.   

Key activities during the marketing program were:  

• Influencer collaboration: four high-profile influencers (such as @wholesomeby sarah, @cheftomwalton, @larissatakchi and @daenskitchen) created engaging recipe content. These influencers produced eight recipes, eight videos, and 70 images that were used in social media advertising and in media coverage to maximise reach.
  
  
• Public relations campaigns generated coverage to drive conversation about Australian onions. The influencer content was leveraged influencer with educational tips, being covered by top-tier lifestyle media.  
  
  
• Onion hampers were sent to 15 media outlets and influencers to encourage further coverage.
  
  
• The campaign followed an ‘always-on’ social media advertising strategy across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok focusing on increasing awareness of the unique benefits of Australian onions under the pillars of taste, ease, and health.
  
  
• The Australian Onions website served as a hub for recipe inspiration and product information, with content regularly updated to support the campaign’s objectives. 

What did we achieve? 

• The influencer collaboration reached over 4.6 million consumers:
  • Sarah’s content delivered 1,300,359 impressions, 39,479 engagements
  • Tom’s content delivered 3,888,812 impressions, 184,163 engagements
  • Larissa’s content delivered 13,022 impressions, 1,220 engagements
  • Daen’s content delivered 391,104 impressions, 29,982 engagements.
    
    
• The public relations campaign secured 40 stories, resulting in over 19 million opportunities to see the campaign. Notable coverage included features on Weekend Sunrise, Woman’s Day, MindFood, 9Honey, and Kidspot.
  
  
• The social media campaign achieved over 18.4 million impressions, and over 1.3 million engagements.
  
  
• The website attracted 51,530 total users and recorded 80,440 views, with 52 per cent of users referred from social media. This marked a 113 per cent increase in views from the previous financial year, underscoring the campaign's success in driving traffic and engagement.