Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the banana marketing levy into a range of activities to drive awareness and consideration. Here is a quick look at what happened during 2023/24…
The banana marketing campaign aims to increase awareness and drive consumption of bananas, especially among infrequent buyers. The campaign focused on encouraging consumers to regularly purchase and eat bananas through various activities, under two strategic pillars:
- Communicating ‘natural energy’ more broadly and frequently continued in the successful ‘Make Your Body Sing’ advertising campaign, leveraging mass-reaching media platforms such as television, catch-up TV, and radio and partnering with Billy Slater who publicly supported the campaign.
- Winning with retailers and shoppers was achieved by hosting retail events to drive consumer purchases and in-store merchandise and staff education for an improved banana shopping experience.
Insights that drove our thinking
- Opportunity for infrequent purchases – the percentage of households that have purchased bananas within a four-week period is 66 per cent, compared to a 12-month penetration rate of 91 per cent. Infrequent buyers typically shopped for bananas 12 times per year, versus regular buyers at 65 times. This highlighted a significant growth opportunity within the infrequent buyer segment.
- Non-fruit substitutes are competition - bananas face competition from non-fruit substitutes such as cereal (31 per cent), ice-cream (25 per cent), toast (25 per cent), and yoghurt (23 per cent).
- Key occasions are breakfast and snacking – bananas dominate the breakfast table, with a 32 per cent share of this meal occasion, but have room for growth in the snack segment, which makes up 39 per cent of banana volume but trails behind apples slightly at 18 per cent.
What the campaign looked like in market and what did we achieve
The 2023/24 'Make Your Body Sing' campaign effectively positioned bananas as a convenient and natural energy source for any occasion. The campaign targeted main grocery buyers aged 18 and over, using the "Whatever Your Thing, Make Your Body Sing" messaging to resonate with diverse consumer lifestyles and activities.
Key achievements included:
- The campaign created over 23.5 million opportunities to see banana messaging. Television and radio advertisements, featuring the catchy "Make Your Body Sing" soundtrack, were particularly memorable, with 50 per cent of consumers recalling the TV ads and 48 per cent recalling the radio ads—an 18 per cent increase from 2022/23.
- National Banana Day in October 2023 and the Back-to-School period in January 2024 both provided opportunities to promote bananas. Combined, these efforts reached 7.5 million Australians, with extensive coverage across major media outlets like ABC Breakfast, Channel 7 News, 2GB Radio, The Daily Telegraph, and 9Honey.
- The Life Education and Healthy Harold partnership reached over 395,000 students from more than 4,000 schools. A survey revealed positive outcomes, with 87 per cent of children recognising bananas as a healthy snack, 79 per cent acknowledging bananas as Healthy Harold’s favourite fruit, and 62 per cent feeling more excited to eat bananas after the program.
- From February to May 2024, bananas were sampled in-store with appealing pairings such as Nutella and yoghurt. The focus was on converting non-buyers and those who hadn't initially picked up bananas. The campaign included 74 sessions across Woolworths and Coles, with 34,715 samples provided and 51,072 shoppers exposed. 84 per cent of consumers noted that the sampling inspired them to purchase bananas, with a 54 per cent conversion rate among those who tried the samples.
