Marketing snapshot - 2020/21

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the passionfruit marketing levy into a range of activities to drive awareness and consumption of the fruit, under the Hort Innovation Passionfruit Fund. Read on for a snapshot of activities and results from the 2020/21 marketing program.

The passionfruit marketing program encouraged consumers to ‘add a dash of passionfruit’ to their everyday meals in 2020/21. Consumers were provided with content and recipes to inspire them to purchase more passionfruit throughout the year.

Recipe development

Food photographer, stylist and recipe developer Bonnie Coumbe was engaged to developed new passionfruit inspired content including recipes, videos and images. This content was shared across social media and provided to media as part of media outreach.

Bonnie created four delicious new recipes with passionfruit as the hero ingredient including passionfruit iced tea, passionfruit lamingtons, passionfruit relish and mini pavlovas with passionfruit curd. She also created two videos to showcase simple ways to ‘add a dash of passionfruit’ and promote the healthy benefits of including passionfruit in your diet.

Health and nutrition content

The campaign collaborated with Accredited Practising Dietitian Lisa Yates to undertake a nutritional review of the composition of Australian passionfruit. This information was then leveraged to develop a suite of compelling health messages that could be used across the campaign to appeal to both consumers and health professionals.

Lisa developed a comprehensive nutritional review document, as well as the substantiation of five health claims for Australian passionfruit, including gut health, immunity, antioxidants and skin health. The nutrition information housed on the Australian Passionfruit website has also been updated in line with the health review.

Public relations

Media outreach was used to promote passionfruit during the summer and winter flushes. Coverage was secured in several top-tier media titles, through pitching the new recipes along with a seasonal media release highlighting the current availability of passionfruit.

The campaign was successful with 36 pieces of coverage across traditional and social media resulting in over seven million opportunities for consumers to see the passionfruit-inspired content. The features included Better Home and Gardens, Women’s Day, Westfield, Buy Australian and Good Fruits and Vegetables to name a few.

Social media

The ‘always on’ approach to social media is designed to keep passionfruit top of mind throughout the year for consumers, with heightened activity during seasonal peaks. During 2020/21, the Australian Passionfruit Facebook page (www.facebook.com/aussiepassionfruit) and Instagram (@aussiepassionfruit) shared a mix of newly created and curated (publisher credited) content to inspire passionfruit use throughout the whole year.

There was a focus on three key content pillars in 2020/21 to address key barriers to purchase, based on consumer insights; ‘Always Aussie’ (grower stories to highlight provenance); ‘Health Hero’ (health and nutrition messaging and healthy usage ideas); and ‘Full of Flavour’ (compelling new recipes).

The social media campaign performed well, generating more than 2.9 million opportunities to see the content with more than 53,000 engagements (such as likes, shares and comments).

Digital mobile media

The objective of digital mobile media activity was to prompt active shoppers to pick up Australian passionfruit on their shopping trip. This advertising format is able to target specific shoppers at specific stores, which translates to greater spend effectiveness.

The campaign was split into two bursts – one during April and May, and the second in June. Shoppers at Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, Harris Farm and IGA were targeted across the country and encouraged to ‘add a dash of passionfruit’.

Digital mobile media activity generated over 1.7 million impressions to see the passionfruit message during the campaign and dessert-themed advertising drove the strongest click-through rate at 0.52 per cent (above the KPI of 0.4 per cent). There was also a strong increase in footfall traffic of +38 per cent. This analysis is based on a control group of ‘non-exposed users’ with the same targeting parameters as ‘exposed users’ to determine the impact