How do you know that a marketing campaign will resonate with consumers? Hort Innovation’s Head of Consumer Marketing, Felecia White, gives us insight into how Hort Innovation leverages data to ensure campaigns deliver maximum return on investment for growers and the horticulture industry.

Why does data matter to marketing campaigns?

Using data means we can make consumer-driven choices about how and where to invest marketing levies that are based on fact rather than opinion, giving us greater confidence that the campaign will deliver value for the industry.

Over the past year, the Hort Innovation Marketing & Demand Creation function has gone through a process to move from once-off evaluation tools to measure our campaign results to a standardised process that uses best-practice data sources and testing methodologies. Access to this data ensures we have objective insights to drive or validate our thinking.

Why test our campaigns?

Before campaigns are fully produced and go live in the market, we test that they resonate with consumers to ensure we are on the right track. Without this, we risk proceeding with campaigns that may not be as effective, which wastes time and resources.

How does the testing work?

Since 2022, Hort Innovation has partnered with Cubery to evaluate more than 75 pieces of advertising content across various media and produce. Hort Innovation’s strong average performance results from a combination of factors — all contributing to the current Cubery Rating average lying around 10 points higher than the norm.

Cubery has a database of thousands of communication pieces for various content types (e.g. video, out-of-home, digital) used to evaluate new campaigns. In addition, they have a quick turnaround and are cost-effective.

Cubery involves an online survey of 150 consumers who are ‘non-rejecters’ of the commodity. Respondents are exposed to a stimulus that represents the ideas and execution of the campaign and answer a list of standardised questions. Cubery compares these results to a normative database and a Hort Innovation average.

The Cubery testing seeks to answer three key questions:

1. Captivate: Does the campaign stand out and grab attention?
2. Connect: Does the campaign result in instant recall of the brand?
3. Compel: Does the campaign motivate behavioural change?

Based on the results, the campaign will either go ahead to market or be adjusted considering the feedback to ensure that it becomes an impactful campaign.

Recently Hort Innovation used Cubery insights to identify which options to go with for the apple industry’s latest ‘Hit Refresh’ campaign. Four options were taken through the Cubery testing process so that the strongest two were identified and progressed. This means we are only investing in the best performing creative campaigns.