Marketing snapshot - Hortlink 2017, edition 1

This Hort Innovation Table Grape Fund marketing snapshot has been taken from Hort Innovation’s Hortlink 2017, edition 1.

Domestic marketing activity

The industry’s Australian marketing campaign is now well underway. It has a focus on reminding consumers that Australian table grapes are now in season, with the objectives of:

• Creating excitement and demand to support local growers that supply the domestic market
• Creating preference for Australian-grown products
• Focusing on product provenance.

Beginning in December and running until May, a print advertising campaign is being run in FRESH magazine in The West Australian newspaper. The magazine has a readership of 300,000 – with 88 per cent of these readers responsible for grocery purchasing decisions. It is dedicated to food, wine and dining-out in the Western Australian market.

Other key domestic marketing activity includes the industry’s social media campaign. The consumer-facing Australian Grapes Facebook page (www.facebook.com/AustralianGrapes) highlights and supports Australian grapes, with posts including recipes, quirky posts to grab consumers’ attention, tips and more.

Export consumer marketing and Now in Season

The multi-industry Now in Season program continues to form an important part of the table grape marketing strategy in international markets. The program promotes Australian produce to consumers in export markets, with a focus on the quality, health and safety credentials of Aussie-grown produce.

Beginning in March and running until June this year, table grapes will have a strong Now in Season presence in Thailand, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Korea and the United Arab Emirates.

On top of the Now in Season involvement, there will be additional consumer marketing in other key markets including Japan and Korea.

As part of this, branding is being developed for Australian Thompson grapes under the Tams Gold brand name, especially for the Korean market. This will be launched to the trade market in March, followed by consumer in-store activations.

Table grape quality project

As reported in the last edition of Hortlink, industry marketing project Fruit Quality Standards program (TG15502) has entered its third and final year. The objectives of this project are to:

• Provide monitoring of quality of early-season grapes with on-farm testing
• Monitor quality at the supermarket level
• Follow up consumer research to measure the level of consumer satisfaction with the quality of grapes purchased
• Grow demand for Australian table grapes by ensuring consumers have a great eating experience, with repeat purchasing throughout the season.

Weekly sampling is taking place over 13 weeks, and results will be available at the end of the season in May this year.