Rincón de Soto pears are grown in a remote corner of La Rioja, a land in central, northern Spain that is known worldwide for its excellent wines. The pears are green, have a generous size and an intense flavour that is distinctively sweet. In 2002, these distinctive characteristics earned them a Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) seal from the EU, making them the first Spanish pears to gain the European distinction.
Now, in 2009, producers face the challenge of building a strong, long-term position for their brand. For this task, they invited 10 Spanish agencies to present their proposals. In the end, agr! agro was chosen to undertake the task and develop a creative strategy for 2009 and 2010.
The pear growers of Rincón de Soto have a top quality product, but a very small crop when you compare it with the whole market. Even if we combine the production from all three of Spain’s pear PDOs – Lleida, Jumilla and Rincón de Soto – it still only amounts to an 8.1 per cent share of Spain’s annual pear production. So, we needed to find a position in the market that would differentiate our pears from others and make them the preferred choice for consumers.
The main reason to buy a particular food is for its taste; since we are talking about fruit everyone knows it is healthy; and most of us consider top-quality fruits as being those that are at an optimum level of ripeness. As consumers obviously cannot taste the fruit before they buy, they pay extreme attention to its appearance, to its colour, shape, size, aroma and consistency. Rincón de Soto pears have physical characteristics that differentiate them from others, which consumers should be able to recognise: they are bigger and sweeter. We therefore based our positioning of the brand on these physical attributes and associated bigger size with a sweeter taste.
Our slogan summarised this idea: PDO Rincón de Soto Pears – big in taste, all sweetness. The aim of the new campaign was to get retailers to recommend our product while ensuring consumers would recognise it and choose it at the point of sale. For that reason, we defined a strategy that combined different media and was tailored to the different regions. While the product is well known in northern Spain, it still remains to be discovered in Madrid.
In the north of the country, we decided to target consumers with mass media activities. To raise general awareness of the brand, we have a double-decker bus that is visiting different towns between 17 March and 16 April. Plus we plan to encourage purchase at point of sale by placing floor stickers in Carrefour, El Corte Inglés, Hipercor and Eroski stores.
In Madrid, meanwhile, we have designed activities to help us consolidate our distribution channels and turn fruit retailers into buyers of the product. With this in mind, we developed a point-of-sale promotion in fruit stores using the exclusive agr! agro database of 480 Madrid grocery outlets. The activity has been divided into two phases. In phase one, we target the fruit retailer with marketing information that will inform them about the promotion and encourage them to take part. In phase two, we are targeting the consumer with a point-of-sale promotion that will run from 20 April to 25 May.
The promotion will offer consumers and retailers alike the opportunity to win a weekend trip for two in La Rioja. To take part, consumers simply have to buy a kilo of Rincón de Soto pears and send us their details. Fruit retailers will win automatically if one of their shoppers wins the prize. By doing it this way, we guarantee their endorsement of the promotion and thus close the strategic circle. To support the promotional campaign, agr! agro has also put together a consumer microsite that will highlight the beneficial advantages of choosing Rincón de Soto pears compared with others on the market.
The Rincón de Soto growers have forecast a considerably improved crop for 2010, when the principal objectives will be to reinforce this year’s marketing campaign and to open new markets in the Mediterranean region through promotions in major wholesale markets..
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