Marketing snapshot - 2020/21

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

The persimmon marketing program positioned Australian persimmons as ‘the autumn fruit’ to turn the short season into a unique selling point in 2020/21. Consumers were provided with educational content and simple usage ideas to encourage them to ‘swap in a persimmon this autumn’.

Recipe development

To generate awareness, local persimmon growers shared their favourite homegrown recipes under the reasoning that ‘who knows how to enjoy Australian persimmons better than those involved in growing them’. Brett and Kate Guthrey shared three of their favourite recipes, including porterhouse steaks with persimmon and ginger dressing, vegan persimmon cake and persimmon Eton mess.

Content creator Marie Duong (@eatswithmarie) was also engaged to capture these recipes in a content shoot, along with other recipes showcasing the versatility of Australian persimmons. Marie created recipes that involved simple swaps with persimmons which were shared on the Persimmons Australia Facebook page (www.facebook.com/persimmonsaustralia) and Instagram (@persimmonsaustralia). The new recipes included chicken burrito bowls with a persimmon salsa, persimmon cookies, persimmon and coconut chia pudding pots, and an autumn harvest cheeseboard with persimmons.

The recipe content performed well with posts sharing Marie’s content reaching over 850,000 people and earning 13,741 engagements (such as comments, shares, likes). This activity accounted for 44 per cent of total engagements achieved for the 2020/21 social media campaign.

Public relations

To announce the persimmon season, the program reached out to media outlets to encourage them to feature persimmons in their content and share educational messages with their audience. A persimmon grower was used as a spokesperson and the announcement of the season was bolstered by offering new recipes and usage ideas.

The public relations campaign performed well and secured over 3.2 million opportunities to see Australian persimmons across 29 pieces of coverage in traditional and social media. This included features in MiNDFOOD, Fresh Plaza, Interiors Addict Foodie Friday, The Senior, Canberra Weekly, Fruit Net and Eativity.

Social media

Social media was used to inspire and educate the online community about the Australian persimmon season. Content was posted once a week over the campaign period to either educate consumers about what a persimmon is, encouraging them to eat seasonally or to consider swapping an ingredient with a persimmon. Facebook advertising was used to boost performance on all posts to extend the reach and engagement.

Marie Duong also created a new video that was boosted with additional spend in early May to drive awareness of persimmons during a peak of supply. The video demonstrated three different ways to eat persimmons and was well-received with over 484,500 opportunities to see the content across Facebook and Instagram.

Overall, the social media campaign performed well achieving more than 4.4 million opportunities to see the persimmon content and over 30,000 engagements (such as likes, comments and shares).