Marketing spotlight 2021/22

Getting papaya on more Aussie plates

Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the papaya 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.

In 2021/22, the Australian Papayas social media campaign was designed to drive awareness and encourage consumers to start the weekend with a “taste of the tropics.” This was achieved by creating engaging social media content targeted at ‘independent singles’ with delicious recipes and fresh imagery.

Social media

Social media activity aimed to increase awareness of the Australian papaya season amongst our target audience via an ‘always-on’ strategy on Facebook and Instagram. One post was shared on each channel weekly, with 68 posts during the campaign.

Social media activity educated and reminded consumers about the fruit and seasonal supply. This evoked inspiration for mouth-watering usage ideas and kept Australian papaya on consumers’ shopping lists.

The posts with the highest engagement rates (likes and comments) were a recipe for ‘mango, banana and papaya breakfast parfaits’ on Instagram (1,066 engagements, 27 per cent engagement rate) and an image of ‘papaya, chia and oat parfaits’ on Facebook (1,293 engagements, 6 per cent engagement rate).

Some highlights of the campaign were:

• More than 2.1 million impressions across Facebook and Instagram (higher than the KPI of 1,850,000 impressions)
• More than 28,300 engagements across Facebook and Instagram, against a KPI of 28,000
• Average engagement rate on Facebook of 4 per cent and 13 per cent on Instagram (against KPIs of 4 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively)

Recipe development

Renowned food photographer Bonnie Coumbe was introduced to the campaign to create a suite of new recipes and imagery for Australian papaya. These were designed to excite and inspire consumers with refreshing, nourishing and adventurous new ways to enjoy papaya.

Leaning into the ‘weekend breakfast’ occasion, to appeal to the ‘independent singles’, the following assets were created:

• Three new papaya recipes, with 40+ new recipe images: BBQ papaya boats, papaya and ginger jam and papaya pancakes
• 60+ hi-res produce lifestyle images.

Brand partnership

Australian Papaya benefited from a first-time partnership with News Corp, with home page takeovers, simple usage applications and recipes on Taste.com.au, Australia’s top food website.

The partnership has resulted in 1.33 million impressions across the site, and 2,881 page views from inclusions, such as:

• Two Taste TV packages with pre-roll
• Social video and surrounding media
• Homepage takeovers
• Recipe recommendations.

The high engagement has inspired consumers to consider papaya in their everyday shops and to showcase the fruit in their everyday meals.

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.