Marketing snapshot - Hortlink 2017, edition 3

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

Hort Innovation invests the persimmon marketing levy into a range of activities to drive awareness and consumption, under the Hort Innovation Persimmon Fund.

The Australian Persimmons 2017 campaign finished in June. It revolved around social media and public relations (PR) activities, with a focus on persimmon seasonality, versatility, serving suggestions and usage tips.

The PR campaign was a great success, with 86 written pieces conveyed to an audience of more than four million people across traditional media and social avenues.

Media highlights included high-impact stories in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, dialing up the exposure of persimmons’ seasonality and beautiful sweetness; a half-page recipe feature syndicated across APN Newspapers; and recipe features on popular websites and in digital publications including 9Kitchen, Westfield, Medibank’s Be Magazine and the Beauty & Lace e-magazine.

With social media widely considered the go-to avenue for consumers to absorb news and spend free time, efforts were dedicated to lifting engagement and positioning persimmons as an untapped gem with easy to absorb messaging. The key was to make persimmons more of an ‘every day’ fruit option to offset any hesitation to try the fruit, aiming to make persimmons more ‘known’. Over the campaign, Facebook posts received more than 5000 likes.