Hort Innovation is responsible for investing the cherry marketing levy into a range of activities to drive awareness and consumption. Here is a quick look at what happened during the year...

During 2025/26, the cherry marketing plan was anchored in the vision that cherries are Australia’s most premium fruit. With a short season and a clear opportunity to grow household penetration, the plan focused on making Australian cherries feel more top of mind, more distinctive and more worth choosing across both domestic and export markets.

The plan brought this vision to life through three connected priorities:  

• Pillar 1: Creating a more consistent Australian Cherries brand platform and asset suite;
• Pillar 2: Building domestic awareness and prompting shoppers at the point of purchase; and  
• Pillar 3: Strengthening preference for Australian cherries in priority export markets.  

Together, these activities were designed to grow demand by reinforcing quality, provenance, freshness and the emotional value of enjoying cherries during the Australian summer.

Insights that drove our thinking  

• Household penetration is the main growth lever: 40 per cent of households bought cherries last season, but this remains below the 44 per cent high recorded in 2021/22.  
• Light and lapsed buyers represent a sizeable volume opportunity: 9 per cent of households missed the latest season and 43 per cent bought cherries only once.  
• Cherries need stronger awareness outside Christmas: Spontaneous purchase intent is only 4–5 per cent in November and January, and even in December only 11 per cent of consumers have cherries top of mind for the next seven days. This supports the need to mark the start of season and continue activity post-Christmas  
• Prompting works: Only 5 per cent of fruit buyers plan to buy cherries unprompted, but this rises to 17 per cent when prompted.
• Retail education has proven commercial impact: Woolworths demo stores achieved 11.8 per cent volume growth, increased year-on-year performance by an additional 14 basis points versus non-demo stores, and recorded 0.7 per cent less stock loss, reinforcing the case for continued investment in the retail quality and education program.  
• Export is growing but still needs preference-building: Export represented 22 per cent of production, up from 19 per cent the previous year, while domestic fresh supply still accounted for 69 per cent. This supports the plan’s third pillar: continuing to build preference in priority export markets while domestic demand remains critical.

What did the campaign achieve?

• A refreshed Australian Cherries brand: A new brand positioning and toolkit was developed for use across domestic and export markets. In export, this included development of Karu, the official Australian Cherries brand mascot. Supporting brand assets were also developed to bring the Australian provenance and freshness story to life including hero brand videos for trade and consumer audiences, short videos for use on social and more than 30 still orchard and product images.  
• Domestic social media advertising campaign: From November 2025 to February 2026, advertising on Facebook and Instagram kept Australian cherries visible during key summer moments. The campaign reached 11 million unique users at a low average frequency of 1.4. Efficient media costs allowed the campaign to reach an additional 2.9 million people, while health, sunny afternoon snack and Christmas creative were among the strongest-performing themes.
• Export marketing across priority markets: Four season launch events were delivered in Vietnam, Taiwan, China Mainland and Hong Kong, attracting 149 attendees including importers, retailers, government, media and industry representatives. The events generated 286 pieces of media coverage. Nineteen influencer collaborations produced 28 pieces of content, more than 473,000 views and more than 20,500 engagements. The events combined market updates, grower participation, product education, tastings and networking to build trade relationships and bring the Australian Cherries story to life.
• Hong Kong consumer promotion: The first consumer activation for Australian Cherries in Hong Kong used Foodpanda, Pandamart and influencer partnerships across Christmas and Lunar New Year. It delivered 1.24 million impressions (the number of times our campaign content was displayed to people) and more than 37,000 clicks. Eight influencer collaborations generated more than 136,000 views and more than 8,600 engagements. Pandamart reported a 61 per cent year-on-year sales uplift during Lunar New Year and a 68 per cent uplift compared with the pre-campaign period.