We’re delighted to announce that we are finalists at the FPC Fresh Awards 2021 for our European Picota cherry campaign, shortlisted for Marketing Campaign of the Year!

As the biggest importer of the variety, the UK is a market where the exclusive, stalkless cherry variety is now well-known and appreciated by consumers. With the 3 million kg of Picotas that were sold in the UK this season, rebranding the product was important as it simply re-emphasized the story of the Picota to meet current customer demands: great taste, exceptional quality, and sustainability.

Revolving around the slogan ‘Pick a Picota: Europe’s Naturally Stalkless Cherry’, the aim of the 2021 year’s campaign was also to realign the Picota cherry branding to celebrate its European heritage, focussing on the sustainable traditions upheld in the Jerte Valley, where they are exclusively grown.

Just some of our highlights include our ‘Pick a Picota Week’ campaign launch on social media, lots of trade coverage, and launching the delicious and inventive Picota recipes that were created by food writers with the likes of Becky Excell and Rhiannon Lambert, encouraging the use of cherries in both baking and cooking.

On the trade side, we held a successful in-person event in London, the first of its kind for Picota Cherries since the start of the pandemic. Key players and journalists came to learn more about the Picota cherry from catering and wholesale experts. The event encouraged more coverage in relevant trade and catering titles, educating the hospitality industry on how Picota cherries can be used innovatively in catering.

This year’s Picota campaign was the first year that it had become part of the wider EU-funded initiative to increase awareness of European produce during a time when the EU has never proved to be so important for UK trade relations.

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We introduced college demonstrations as part of the competition process this year, which we found to be a key activity in inspiring student chefs.

The competitions require entrants (up to 25 years) to demonstrate an understanding of a particular cuisine. This year we’ve run South African Cuisine Young Chef of the Year and Young Peruvian Chef of the Year.The idea behind the demonstrations is to provide attendees with the opportunity to learn from reputable professionals before creating their entry menu.

This year, we had Robert Ortiz (Peru) and Petrus Madutlela (South Africa) demonstrating at Westminster Kingsway College, University College Birmingham and Richmond Upon Thames College. Both chefs created three dishes using typical national ingredients, whilst talking students through the process; focusing on ingredient flavours, textures and heritage. Students were encouraged to ask questions, taste the ingredients and the completed dishes throughout.

It’s a good idea to have a compère present. Luckily Robert and Petrus were confident communicators, but it can be helpful to have someone alongside the chef to ask questions which will benefit the audience.

We ensured there were plenty of entry packs and information available on the day, for students to feel confident in submitting their creations.

We’ll be starting demonstrations for the 2018 competitions in October this year.

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Product sampling is an important part of the campaigns we run at RED. It might be in-store, retailer head office, on-street or supper clubs. Although run in different ways, they all share the same end goal: product exposure, brand awareness, consumer feedback and ultimately increased sales. The beauty of sampling is the opportunity to engage directly with consumers; to discover how they react initially to your product, to get their feedback post tasting and to educate them on your product’s USPs.

In-store sampling is a great way to encourage immediate purchase. Implementation is complex, so we highly recommend ensuring you have an efficient, proactive team on board that can project manage from start to finish. Attention to detail is key in this scenario: just one element being overlooked can impact on the whole activity. Ideally you want to secure an area in-store with a high footfall and close to your product on-shelf. Also make sure your category buyer has allocated a higher unit quantity for potential sell-through. The sampling team will brief the staff in-store, so be clear and specific in how you want your product to be promoted.

Avocado sampling in UK Tesco stores

Head office sampling is a great way to get the retailer excited about your product. We often bring a campaign mascot along as it makes for a more interactive, fun environment. It also creates fantastic photos to use for further promotional activity, particularly social media. We always like to involve suppliers in our head office sampling due to their extensive product knowledge on origin, ethics, UK consumption etc. Collaborating with head office catering teams is a way of getting your product in the canteen; incorporating it within the menu promotes your product’s versatility and provides recipe inspiration for consumers.

Spanish Persimon sampling at Tesco HQ

The main factors to consider when on-street sampling are location, a high-energy sampling team and the day/s you choose to run the activity. Your location needs to ideally be a large town or city and in a high footfall area. We recently ran avocado sampling in Brighton, which operated within the vicinity of Brighton station; this enabled us to reach a mix of both commuters and consumers on a day trip. In order to draw in the crowds – you’ll need a motivated, fun and friendly team who will have an impact on the way consumers leave thinking about your brand. We all know the feeling of dread that occurs when Mr Promo and his clipboard are ready to pounce in the distance and you’re forced to take an alternative route; there’s nothing worse than a drawn out survey mid-shop! We used ‘Avo Man’ during the Brighton sampling, who received a great response from consumers.

We also toured ‘Avo Man’ around various London publishing houses, again to promote Peruvian avocados, whilst delivering Mae Deli lunches to journalists. Although getting in front of your desired journalist can be tricky and press/social media coverage therefore sparse, if you get it right, it is extremely effective. On this particular occasion we received a surfeit of both – undoubtedly due to being in the midst of ‘avo-mania’ at the time and the set of abs delivering them.

‘Avo Man’ visiting the editorial team at Woman & Home

Last month we had the pleasure of managing a stand at the BBC Good Food Show for the Ministry of Commerce Thailand. As part of the activity, we ran chef demonstrations which enabled consumers to not only watch recipes being made, but to taste the dishes and products we were promoting. This strategy creates an opportunity for consumers to engage with chefs directly and enhance their knowledge of our products versatility. It’s also a great way for product suppliers to utilise chefs in order to up-sell.

Jane Alty from The Begging Bowl demonstrating Thai cuisine

Supper clubs are a fantastic way to engage with the press in an informal environment. Have a read of our blog post ‘Why Supper Club?’ for more tips on this approach to sampling.

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Similarly, more and more chefs are setting up pop-ups; whether it be at home, within restaurants, or even on London’s public transport.

RED organised a supper club on behalf of South African Flavorking plums with MsMarmiteLover last week

The pop-up revolution, which was started by bloggers such as MsMarmiteLover in 2011, is continuously evolving with the ‘dine-and-do’ concept becoming increasingly popular.  Carousel and Kino Vino are amongst the many current successes.

MsMarmiteLover

We’ve come up with 10 reasons why you should set up your own supper club and 10 reasons why you should attend:

Set up a supper club:

• Opportunity to test the market before adding dishes to a permanent menu
• Provides blog/social media content
• Enables chefs  to showcase their skills to a private audience and meet consumers face to face
• Opportunity to receive direct feedback from consumers
• No permanent staffing costs
• Already paying rent/mortgage so no extra business rates
• It’s a flexible business model
• Opportunity for collaboration with potential suppliers
• Good exposure for you/your restaurant
• It’s fun!

Attend a supper club:

• Dine in a relaxed, informal environment
• Supper clubs are often themed, enabling you to sample new cuisines
• Opportunity to engage with the chef directly
• A chance to meet new people from a social perspective
• It’s perfectly acceptable to attend alone
• Collaborate from a business perspective
• Cost of experience is less than dining in a restaurant and usually a set price per head
• Often able to BYO booze as majority of home restaurants aren’t licensed to sell alcohol
• Inspiration
• It’s fun!

Here’s a few of our favourite supper clubs:

http://www.msmarmitelover.com/

http://www.thelondonfoodie.co.uk/

http://seasonaldinnerparties.co.uk/supper-clubs/

https://www.tomskitchen.co.uk/events/

https://thesecretsuppersociety.com/

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People didn’t understand how to ripen avocados either. This was a problem because most of them were sold hard. Retailers were apparently unwilling to take on the wastage risk of stocking a slow-moving product when it was already ripe.

The media weren’t helping the situation. Health journalists were often reluctant to write about avocados, perceiving them to be calorific and full of fat. Weight Watchers magazine regarded the avocado as it might a cream doughnut – or worse: it was a fatty imposter masquerading as a ‘fruit’.

Our promotions set out to tackle these misconceptions. From the start, we have talked about monounsaturated fats, potassium and fibre, oleic acid, tryptophan and the many, many other health-giving properties of avocados. We meet with retailers and suppliers to communicate these at the point-of-sale. And we met with journalists and bloggers to encourage them to write about these in the media. Social media has also been a great forum for sharing facts, recipes and films, but it’s also provided a fantastic barometer of how avocados are doing. Last year avocado became the most Instagrammed fresh produce item.

Most importantly, we have given shoppers and writers the chance to find out what a really good, ripe avocado tastes like. This includes getting them to try avocados while they’re shopping in the fruit and vegetable aisle, delivering ready-to-eat avos to journalists at publishing houses and organising events where chefs such as Thomasina Miers or Angela Hartnett have cooked up inspirational food using avocados as an ingredient.

Sustained promotions have mobilised consumers and demonstrated the potential for growth to the supply chain. As avocados began to shift in more volume, retailers have increased in confidence to stock ready-to-eat lines. Shoppers have loved it and have responded by eating more. Avocados are showing exciting growth. Consumers have now bought more than the previous year in each of the last three years, according to Kantar Worldpanel.

There are two clear areas for developing the UK market for avocados from here. The first is in purchase frequency, increasing existing consumers’ repertoire of avocado usage. Most of the recent growth falls under this category – an example being the arrival of the avocado and poached eggs breakfast in cafes around the UK – and there is growth to come as existing consumers buy more avocados for new uses. People who would once eat avocado salads are now also mashing it on toast, drinking it in smoothies and even baking with it.

However, penetration of avocados, although growing slowly, remains at an anecdotal 30 per cent, so the biggest potential for growth will come from targeting the remaining majority of the populations that haven’t eaten an avocado in the past year. The reason they haven’t? These include “I’ve never tried one”, “I don’t know what to do with them”, and “they’re unhealthy, aren’t they?” Future promotions will concentrate on removing these reasons one by one and by doing so we aim to unlock the next stage of growth for avocados in the UK.

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This explainer video will tell you more.

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The Help a South African School project sees UK schoolchildren collect unused English language text or story books, which are picked up from schools and shipped to schools in fruit growing and other rural areas of the Western Cape of South Africa. It’s part of a PR and marketing campaign for South African stone fruit, apples and pears.

Earlier this year, campaign ambassador, kids’ BBC TV chef and ‘Gastronaut’ Stefan Gates, visited one of the schools that received books donated during the 2015 campaign. Last week, he was part of the panel of guests on The Wright Stuff, a morning television chat show on Channel 5 and talked about the project and its website.

You can watch the clip here.

The post The art of a good PR plug appeared first on RED Communications.

Avocado sandwiches in Cafe Paris, Cambridge

At RED Communications we are involved in many different initiatives to promote fresh fruit and veg to parents, in leaflets and magazines, films, websites and in supermarkets. Over the last decade, we’ve seen a sea-change in the attitudes of the British public toward eating well. Programmes such as Jamie’s School Dinners and Honey We’re Killing the Kids have grown in popularity; sales of ‘healthy’ food and drinks – including bagged salads, cereal bars and bottled water – have boomed; while the Government reports that we are buying and eating more fresh food.

However, in spite of these positive trends why are there still places in Britain where it is nearly impossible to find healthy food, particularly when you are out with the children?

Whether you’re taking the family to a soft play area, to a theme park or the cinema; or stopping at a motorway café en route, at too many of these sites the provision of fresh and healthy food is still woefully low on the agenda.

The finger is often pointed at parents for failing to encourage good eating habits at home, but businesses catering for our families when we are out and about also have a big role to play in developing young palates. So it’s frustrating to see that in the vast majority of venues, the food and drink that we should be eaten is simply not available.

Instead, chocolate, crisps, artificially sweetened drinks are more representative of the typical offer. When this is the case, there is often no option but to feed the kids these things (no sane parent asks a hungry child to wait).

With the recent media attention on children’s diets and the importance that we all eat fruit, some of the more forward-looking places have introduced a fruit bowl. It’s a positive development, but I’d argue that in common with most convenience stores with a fresh spread, the choice is very often sadly predictable, featuring the usual offer; apples, bananas and clementines. There is nothing wrong with these fruits, of course, but realistically how can this meagre spread compete with the huge variety of attractive, brightly coloured bottles of Fruit Shoots, shiny Haribo packets or the plethora of biscuits, chocolate and other snacks available.

Naturally, children love these things. There is also a mentality that says a family day out is all about decadent treats, and fruit apparently doesn’t fall into this category. Caterers say demand for fresh fruit is therefore low and they shape their offer accordingly.

The challenge to play areas and other family destinations is to play an active rather than passive role and actually seek to influence people’s choices positively, to get a varied range of fresh stuff on sale, and get customers, particularly kids, interacting, finding out about it and crucially wanting to eat it.

I’d like to see more of these venues leading by example, encouraging kids to make healthy choices, with imaginative initiatives that help them to do so. This takes work, obviously, but think of the benefit for the health of your customers. If you want to be cynical about it, in the current climate think of the positive PR value you would get from doing this.

Parents still need to play their part, of course, and as well as asking their local play centres, cinemas and so on to provide proper healthy food, they also need to to ensure that the desire to eat healthily is instilled in the home.

If you want to start simply, you can try something that only 25 per cent of the population did last year: eat an avocado. Take a nice Hass avocado – one of the nutritionally richest foods you can give your kids – mash it with grated cheddar cheese, spread on thick bread and toast under the grill. They, and probably you, will absolutely love it.

If more families can foster a love for fresh fruit and veg in the home, they are more likely to seek it out – to demand it when they are out.

A final note – I often hear from adults that the quality of fresh fruit in this country is poor, and the range boring. But this is a long outdated view. Delicious and ripe fruit is available throughout the year. When British summer fruit is not in season, you can find juicy, sweet South African plums, peaches, nectarines or seedless grapes. In the autumn you can add more variety by offering exotic fruit such as Spanish persimon, which is very sweet, has no pips and can be eaten skin-and-all like an apple as a great and energy-giving snack for kids. These just are two of hundred examples I could give. Availability of an exciting range of fruit is not a problem. Lack of imagination and willingness is.

This article first appeared in Indoor Play magazine

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RED Communications made the annual pilgrimage to Berlin last week to find out what’s new and exciting in the sector, make new contacts and catch up with friends from the industry.

We discussed many exciting developments during the week. This included the changes afoot in the UK retail sector, which are creating interesting marketing and PR openings for promoting in the sector. In spite of the rapid pace of development in new markets for fresh produce around the world, the UK remains an attractive outlet for incumbent suppliers and is presenting opportunities for new ones too.

This was one of the subjects we discussed with the Fresh Produce Journal and Eurofruit on the final day of the event. You can listen to the conversation here.

Oh and spot the RED Communications photo bomb in this picture of the London Produce Show stand (thanks to Jon Clark of Total Cherry for sending this)…

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Constance has been with us for two months now. Here’s her feedback on her time with RED so far:

“In the short time since I have joined the agency, I have learned a lot. RED Communications provides a wide range of services for its clients – which includes public relations, customer research and in-store marketing – and I have worked on a number of different projects in these areas.” 

“I find the atmosphere here in the office serious and professional, but very friendly at the same time. Everyone is very nice and very helpful and I always feel the staff will always do their best to help me – and it’s obvious that they take the same approach with clients. The agency puts great importance in its relationships with clients, existing and potential.”

“All the campaigns – in the fields of food, wine or business-to-business – I have been involved in are very interesting. People here seem so enthusiastic; I think because they are working in an industry they love and that they have a real interest in. I have been involved in their day-to-day activities and given responsibilities for various small projects; which is good for me as an intern, and it very challenging – which I like!”

“RED is a great place to be as creative as I want. I am going to be here for another four months. During this time I am also hoping to be involved with some new clients so that I can really get the best out of this experience.”

Thought for the day:

RED Communications is a great place for students of all ages to gain an exciting and varied experience of life in a marketing agency. We believe in getting the best from our staff by giving them autonomy and responsibility for their own projects. I hope we have given Constance a good introduction to working in an agency – and that when she leaves us in December she’ll consider marketing and PR as a serious career option. We wish you all the best! 

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