By Elisa King, Hort Innovation Marketing Manager 

After a strong start to the year, the Australian Bananas marketing campaign is set to go from strength to strength for the second half.

Research results remain positive, with advertising recall increasing and bananas maintaining their position as the number one energy snack in Australia.

Our current burst of advertising is aimed at continuing this positive momentum.

 TELEVISION

Our latest campaign was launched in March across all major metro and regional markets including Foxtel.

With our 30 second TV commercial in its third year and well established in consumers’ minds, this burst consists of 15 second commercials only.

This approach allows us to more cost-efficiently reach a high proportion of our target audience of people aged 25–54.

For our metro TV campaign, we opted for a two network deal with Channel Nine and Ten, avoiding the premium costs associated with the Winter Olympics and Commonwealth Games on the Seven network.

With this increased buying power, we were able to secure spots in popular programs including the final weeks of Married at First Sight, The Voice, I’m a Celebrity, and Bachelor in Paradise.

In regional markets, where media is much more affordable, we are taking advantage of the increased audience watching the Commonwealth Games on the Channel Seven affiliate, Prime.

Australian Bananas will feature during key day and night-time events, as Aussies look to bring home gold!

Even with a reduced TV budget in the second half, we expect to hit 40% of our audience at least twice during this burst of activity.

OUT-OF-HOME

Our investment in out-of-home posters and billboards continues to grow.

The medium plays a pivotal role in delivering scale and frequency of message. It also allows us to reinforce the fun tone of voice that we have built for our brand over many years.

This burst will see our ads feature on several unique mediums, including some for the very first time.

Retail Digital Poster Panels, Portrait Bus Sides, a wrapped Maxi-Bus, large-format Digital Billboards, and Gym Screens will all feature bananas advertising from March to the beginning of June, across all markets.

Our Retail Digital Panels are the last point of contact for customers and directly influence their purchasing decisions.

70% of our panels will be located outside grocery stores reminding consumers to add bananas to their weekly shop.

The remaining 30% of panels will display our ads in high traffic areas, providing a constant and frequent reminder to top up.

This retail activity will be seen by over 5.8 million people during our campaign period.

Our Portrait Bus Side placements will reinforce our ‘non-stop energy snack’ message perfectly in an environment that creates mass awareness and frequency.

For the first time, we’ll have a fully wrapped maxi-bus roaming the streets of Sydney during the entire campaign period!

The creative, which features a Harbour Bridge banana, is sure to turn heads.

Large format Digital Billboards have been expanded for the second half after our successful use of this medium in 2017 where we won the
Outdoor Media Association’s award for ‘Best Traditional Use of OOH’.

On the back of this success we have expanded our large format strategy with new sites booked in Melbourne, Geelong, Brisbane, and Perth.

Meanwhile, gym advertising will continue to play a key role in our out-of-home strategy.

Our message will be seen in over 470 gyms, clubs and indoor sport centres nationally, in formats that include portrait digital screens, large format TV, standard landscape TV, plus treadmill and bike machine screens.

The inclusion of indoor sport centres is an exciting addition to our plans with the extended coverage ensuring we will reach up to 900,000 fitness fanatics weekly.

We will also continue our magazine presence with a two page ‘High Performance’ advertorial and a full page in the March/April issue of the popular Fitness First Mag.

This will be followed by an outside back cover placement in the May/June issue.

CINEMA 

Cinema rounds out our out-of-home activity with 11 weeks of screen time including a focused run during the key April school holiday period.

Our 30 second commercial will appear before blockbusters including Solo: A Star Wars Story, Deadpool, Peter Rabbit and Oceans 8. This will give huge exposure to Australian Bananas beyond the traditional TV audience.

This screen presence will be coupled with our 15 second animated videos on cinema foyer digital screens.

This will extend our reach even further with the cinema campaign reaching over 700 000 people aged 25–54.

ONLINE

Our online activity is underway and will continue until the beginning of June.

For this phase of digital activity, a three-prong attack has been developed.

Firstly, Catch-Up TV will extend the visibility of our 15 and 30 second TV commercials in popular online environments.

25–54 year olds will be targeted in formats such as Tenplay, 7Plus, 9Now, and SBS On Demand and provide us with premium content in popular free-to-air programs.

Catch-Up TV also provides exceptionally high completion rates, and strong viewability scores.

Secondly, 6 sec YouTube bumper video ads will be used to convey our message in a short and punchy way.

These ads are non-intrusive, and can be placed more frequently at a cheaper cost, ensuring we reach a larger number of online consumers than we have ever been able to before.

Thirdly, Quantium Woolworths and Westpac data will offer a combination of digital display and video served to different target audiences based on the shopping behaviours of new/active and lapsed/lapsing banana buyers.

SOCIAL MEDIA 

Meanwhile, our social media platforms continue to deliver a consistent brand presence.

In February alone, we delivered over 1,400,000 impressions to audiences across Facebook and Instagram with over 890,000 engagements featuring Australian Bananas content recorded—either a like, comment, share or view.

We will continue our focus on recipes and building partnerships that grow the brand even further.

We’ll also be putting the spotlight on Lady Fingers and returning to grower content that has previously performed so well for us.

MORE NON-STOP ACTIVITY 

Underpinning all this activity, we will also be pursuing exciting opportunities in Public Relations, Sponsorship, and Community Events.

It’s certainly a non-stop schedule for nature’s nonstop energy snack, and one that should continue to drive brand awareness and banana sales.