Marketing spotlight 2021/22

Putting more persimmons on Aussie plates

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the persimmon marketing levy into a range of activities to drive awareness and consideration. Here’s a quick look at some of the activities and achievements in 2021/22.

The Persimmons Australia social media campaign was designed to drive awareness for Australian persimmons and inspire consumers to snack on the autumn fruit via engaging social media content targeted at ‘independent singles’.

Social media

Social media activity aimed to increase awareness and penetration of the Australian Persimmon season amongst the target audience via an ‘always-on’ strategy on Facebook and Instagram, sharing one post per channel weekly.

Awareness was prioritised, educating consumers about the autumn fruit and persimmon season. This inspired consumers by displaying mouth-watering usage ideas, encouraging Australians to try simple new recipes and providing snacking ideas improved by incorporating persimmons.

There were 40 posts shared on owned social channels from February to May. The top engaged post on Instagram was a shot of a persimmon cheese platter from last year’s content shoot (1,036 engagements, 21 per cent engagement rate) and an image of sliced persimmon and avocado on toast for Facebook (1,408 engagements, 10 per cent engagement rate).

Some highlights of the social media campaign were:

• More than 1,285,000 impressions across Facebook and Instagram (higher than the KPI of 1,200,000 impressions)
• More than 17,000 engagements across Facebook and Instagram, against a KPI of 10,000
• Average engagement rate on Facebook of six per cent and nine per cent on Instagram (against KPIs of four per cent and five per cent, respectively

Content creation

To help engage fans on Persimmons Australia social channels, food photographer Bonnie Coumbe was commissioned to create a suite of new recipes and imagery designed to excite and inspire consumers with simple yet elegant and playful ways to snack on persimmons.

In 2021/22 the Hort Innovation Marketing function underwent a significant shift in their approach to investing marketing levies. You can read more about this in the 2021/22 Hort Innovation Company Annual Report at www.horticulture.com.au/annual-report-portal.