GREAT GRAPES, TASTE AUSTRALIA

THE

BRIEF

In the competitive Chinese market we had to ensure tablegrapes made a splash among a food loving audience who’ll pay well for the best produce, while educating them on Australian varieties. And we needed to structure a campaign that accounted for local nuances across seven Asian countries.

THE

APPROACH

Sampling in supermarkets only speaks to the grocery buyer and means brands who only invest in retail sampling are likely missing an upwardly mobile crowd. We wanted to take our sampling out of the supermarket and into a different environment to capture a larger share of the Chinese audience, and showcase Australian tablegrapes in a new way to drive consideration.

We partnered with Guangzhou’s best artisanal gelateria to make a limited run of unique Australian tablegrape gelato – harnessing the vibrant flavours and colours of Australia’s best grape varieties and ran product sampling outside to maximise Taste Australia brand awareness. We then engaged KOLs to promote the partnership to drive foot traffic to the gelateria, further creating organic content that we could showcase on our WeChat to demonstrate endorsement.

Some of our other activity by market included:

Japan: We provided a gift with purchase for every 200 grams of grapes to incentivise sales among the Japanese, who much prefer local produce to imported. Media relations drove awareness and generated almost $300,000 in coverage.

Korea: We undertook 162 sampling sessions that increased purchase by 385% and ran a PR event with the Australian ambassador to the nation that drove media coverage.

Vietnam: A social high tea was held at an Australian theme restaurant where we themed the menu grapes – five major media organisations attended and the resulting coverage reached 1 million people.

The Philippines: In addition to a media strategy we also ran fun mini games on Facebook that reached six million people, while our media strategy resulted in coverage by 78 outlets and influencers.

Indonesia: We hosted a hero media event at AEON supermarket with 60 importers, media, influencers and the Australian embassy. This resulted in 7 articles, 31 social posts and reached more than 2.6 million

Thailand: Our media launch at Tesco reached 47 million people and resulted in a huge 242% increase in sales.

THE

RESULT

With our gelato pop-up, customers started queuing for the limited flavours four hours before the store opened and the gelato sold out. More than 80% of people polled outside said they would buy Australian tablegrapes after sampling and the activation was covered on the front page of Chinese restaurant review portal Dianping. Thanks to our KOL strategy and use of influencers we reached 3.9 million people.

Across the broader campaign we conducted 1,149 sampling days across 84 cities in 35 retailers and 294 stores. We held nine events that resulted in more than 100 pieces of media coverage and support from over 100 influencers who posted more than 200 times in total.