Where Apples Love to Grow Fresh Campaign, Fall 2018 GOALS 1. Increase sales of Michigan apples. 2. Position Michigan apples as the first choice when purchasing apples. 3. Increase consumer awareness of the freshness that comes with purchasing Michigan apples. STRATEGY The 2018 Fresh campaign was developed to help connect consumers to Michigan apples by showing visual representation of where they are grown and how freshness is cultivated. The Fresh campaign also positioned Michigan apples as an accesible, wholesome food for people of all ages abd illustrated how apples can be integrated into everyday life, showing ways to prepare, preserve and eat. The campaign visuals accomodated style preferences of the target audience, women ages 20-55, through vibrant and crisp photography and eye-catching, illustrative graphics. The variety in posts resulted in increased engagement and continually elevated presence on social media. Where Apples Love to Grow Fresh Campaign, Fall 2018 Where Apples Love to Grow Fresh Campaign, Fall 2018 michiganapples Facebook Instagram Twitter 2018 Harvest Campaign: Preliminary Analytics August through December 2018 FACEBOOK Followers Starting followers: 48,990 Ending followers: 55,669 NET CHANGE: +13.6 percent Average daily growth: 48.8 Total increase of 6,679 followers Reach Organic reach: 40.1k Paid reach: 296.1k Engagement 13.2k likes 2,500 shares 1,970 clickthroughs TWITTER Followers Starting followers: 1,509 Ending followers: 1,592 NET CHANGE: +5.5 percent Average daily growth: 0.6 Total increase of 83 followers Reach Owned: 135 Earned: 540 Potential impressions: 5.8M Frequency: 2.32 INSTAGRAM Followers Starting followers: 2,474 Ending followers: 2,744 NET CHANGE: +10.9 percent Average daily growth: 2 Total increase of 270 followers Reach Impressions: 76.4k Engagement Total engagement: 5,336 Total likes: 5,142 MAC Influencer Campaign 2018 Wrap-Up Report SUMMARY For this year’s influencer campaign, we chose food personalities Joy Wilson and Melissa d’Arabian to develop custom recipes for Michigan Apples and position the product as superior among other ingredients. We chose these two influencers because their audience reflected that of Michigan Apples, and their unique perspective on food preparation and presentation stands out among the rest. About Joy Joy is the founder of the award-winning lifestyle site JoytheBaker.com. Since its launch in 2008, the site has repeatedly been recognized as one of the best food blogs by a variety of leading publications, including The London Times, Forbes, and Bon Appetit, and it was named Best Baking Blog by Yahoo!, Saveur Magazine (twice!) and praised by Taylor Swift. Her work also has been featured in leading food and lifestyle media including: People, Elle, Food & Wine, Popsugar, Refinery29, The Today Show, Better Homes and Gardens, Cherry Bombe and TheKitchn.com, among others. Joy is also known for her work on the viral Instagram account @DrakeOnCake. Joy is a widely sought-after recipe developer, photographer and brand strategist. Past brand work includes KitchenAid, Starbucks, Hilton, Baileys, Hallmark, Nordstrom and the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. For this campaign, Joy developed two custom baking recipes using Michigan Apples, and she hosted a Michigan Apple Pie class at her live-work space, The Bake House. Our goal for Joy’s involvement was to educate her “hands-on” audience about the advantages of baking Michigan Apples knowing that once they try them, they will never use anything else! Following and Potential Reach: o Facebook likes: 211k o Instagram followers: 437k o Twitter followers: 61k o Audience: 84 percent female, 16 percent male o Average age of audience: 25-34 About Melissa Celebrity chef, television host, best-selling author, speaker, writer, and mom of four, Melissa d’Arabian is an expert on affordable and healthy family home cooking. With a lifelong passion for cooking and varied life experiences, Melissa naturally connects with today’s diverse families as she shares empowering food and lifestyle solutions that are part of a bigger story about how to eat well, be a responsible consumer and spend with purpose – all while putting satisfying family meals on the table every day. After winning season five of “The Next Food Network Star” in August 2009, Melissa premiered her inaugural cooking show “Ten Dollar Dinners.” A natural extension of the relatable television series, Melissa’s first cookbook, “Ten Dollar Dinners: 140 Recipes and Tips to Elevate Simple, Fresh Meals Any Night of the Week,” debuted in August 2012 as an instant New York Times best seller. Melissa also serves as a recurring judge on Food Network’s primetime competition series, “Guy’s Grocery Games,” in addition to a variety of appearances on Food Network primetime series including “Chopped,” “Cutthroat Kitchen,” “The Best Thing I Ever Ate,” and “Food Network Challenge.” For this campaign, Melissa developed a custom savory dinner recipe using Michigan Apples. Because Melissa’s audience is very similar to our target market, we wanted her to show them how easy and delicious it is to prepare meals for the family using Michigan Apples! Following and Potential Reach: o Facebook likes: 109k o Instagram followers: 29.7k o Twitter followers: 27.6k o Audience: 85 percent female, 15 percent male o Average age of audience: 35-64 OBJECTIVE & EVALUATION Objective: Increase awareness of Michigan Apples across the United States, positioning them as a superior product. With the product grown and manufactured in Michigan, it’s easy to think the Midwest is the target audience. But Michigan Apples are loved all over the country and the world! Our main objective was to provide an increased awareness in other markets, which is why we chose influencers whose audiences spanned different parts of the country. Because of the climate and proximity to water in Michigan, we know Michigan Apples have a superior taste and flavor to others, and we wanted to prove it by asking our influencers to develop custom recipes using the product, encouraging their audience to do the same. Evaluation: Comments from fans across the nation proved that the word was out. With a combined total of 127 comments and replies across all social posts during the campaign, people had a lot to say about Michigan Apples. All feedback was incredibly enthusiastic and positive. Here are a few of our favorites: • “There is nothing better than a Michigan Honeycrisp apple!” • “Love the transparent partnership! Also, yum. Gonna go eat a Michigan Cortland right now.” • “We have amazing apples in Michigan, I must say. I can’t imagine that they were any better in the Garden of Eden!” Even our influencer Melissa d’Arabian said, “I may have eaten the sauce by the spoonful for lunch one day … it’s SO good!” CAMPAIGN OBSERVATIONS Facebook Based on our data, the people who engaged with Facebook content were influential in making purchase decision for the home. The average demographic was women age 39. Instagram This platform received the highest engagement. In fact, engagements were seven times higher than Facebook or Twitter! Instagram also received 598 clicks to the MAC website via the recipe link. Among internet users, 38% of women and 28% of men have accounts, with the user count growing close to 5% per quarter, so this shows that Instagram is a powerful tool for reaching our audience, especially through the use of features such as Stories and IGTV. (Hubspot, 2018) For Joy specifically, we knew she is most well-known for her Instagram, so we used that to our advantage by having her concentrate most of the content there. Twitter Engagement on this platform was the lowest of all, mostly due to the fact that Twitter algorithms are designed to encourage people to become part of a larger conversation through the use of hashtags. There is definite potential for engagement if we use our content for that purpose. CAMPAIGN RESULTS This data includes posts from Joy and Melissa, as well as those shared from MAC’s social channels. Instagram Total Campaign Posts 7 Total Reach 172,650 Total Likes and Comments 17,630 Instagram defines reach as the number of unique users who saw your post or story on any given day. Facebook Total Campaign Posts 9 Total Reach 36,087 Total Engagement 1,966 Facebook defines reach as the number of unique people who saw your content. Engagement is when people perform actions on your content, such as a like, click or comment. Twitter Total Campaign Posts 7 Total Engagement 137 Total MAC Website Clicks 40 Twitter defines engagement as any way someone interacts with a tweet including, but not limited to, retweets, clicks and likes. TOP PERFORMING POSTS LESSONS LEARNED & RECOMMENDATIONS The earlier we can begin the partnership with influencers, the better. It can take weeks and even months to negotiate contracts and come to an agreement on services and payment, not to mention allowing time for content development. Another takeaway is to develop an organic relationship with the influencer or brand prior to inquiring about ambassadorship. This way, they know who you are and how your brand connects with their audience. This can be done through the simple act of engaging with their content throughout the year on social media. For future campaigns, we recommend the following: • Maintain engagement with 2018 influencers on social media, liking, commenting on and sharing their content. This also keeps our content at the forefront of their mind and will likely cause their audience to take notice. • Identify target influencers in Q1 or Q2. This gives plenty of time to settle contracts and leaves margin for any hang-ups during content development. • Develop geographical/regional sales goals that can correlate to influencer location and impact. • Consider partnering with a single large influencer with longer duration during the harvest.