VLAM, Flanders’ Agricultural Marketing Board, has revealed that it is extending its successful German Conference pear campaign in Germany, while efforts are also being made to engage consumers on social media.
Three years ago, VLAM and the Dutch GroentenFruit Bureau decided to join forces to launch the Conference pear on the German market. The focus of the campaign was on tasting sessions, with as many as 1,600 taking place in supermarkets in North Rhine-Westphalia. Now the campaign will cover the rest of Germany.
“Our target group was young families with children, and in that sense we have certainly succeeded,” said Kristophe Thijs, director of the VLAM office in Cologne. “But the samples have also acted like a magnet for older people.”
The tastings gave shoppers a chance to sample the pear and learn about the Conference’s versatility. According to VLAM, up to 45 per cent of those who sampled Conference went on to buy them.
As for social media, Thijs said the campaign reached a varied audience. “People are open about Conference and beginning to talk about pears in general,” he said. “And that was exactly what we wanted to achieve. In the context of a campaign like this, social media do indeed have a rather informative and supportive effect.”
Radio spots on MNM and Studio Brussel advertised the start of the Conference season in Belgium, while in the Netherlands that campaign was supported by TV spots. The pear also appeared at the Gastvrij Rotterdam catering event and during the Libelle summer week.
According to VLAM, the sampling sessions and social media campaign have delivered clear results., with the Conference pear developing into a fixture for German shoppers.
“The taste of the Conference pear has really hit the spot,” said Thijs. “On top of that, we have really been driving home the big advantage of this pear, the fact that it can be eaten both hard and soft. I think we have succeeded in challenging the image of the so-called discount pear. Some chains, such as Edeka and Globus, have now added the pear to the regular ranges that they carry.”
The statistics certainly back up the Conference’s resurgence. It is now the third favourite variety in North Rhine-Westphalia. In the first year of the campaign, 36 per cent of the German consumers surveyed occasionally bought Conference; by the end of the third year, that figure had risen to 46 per cent.
In Belgium, average household consumption rose from 4.27kg in 2013 to 5.66kg in 2014. In the Netherlands, consumption rose from 2.57kg per household to 3.19kg.
Such results have encouraged VLAM and GroentenFruit Bureau to extend the campaign by a year to the whole of Germany.
