British asparagus campaign scores again

A slightly delayed start to the UK asparagus season in May failed to dampen consumer demand, with trip spend and volume per customer increasing.

The ongoing PR campaign, now in its sixth year, continued to drive awareness of the British crop and its season, despite tricky growing conditions pushing back the start of the season compared to previous years, with full supply established in the first week in May.

‘Quick & Easy!’ was the central theme of the 2008 campaign, which focused on debunking the myth that asparagus is difficult to cook with. Recipes were devised around the sub-theme of ‘how to impress in ten minutes or less’, and male audiences were targeted with an online video which ran on the website www.british-asparagus.co.uk and also on Youtube. The video featured a ‘chef to the stars’, who has cooked on tour for Oasis, Metallica, Robbie Williams and many more. He also appeared as a guest on a series of 18 regional radio interviews.

This year also saw the celebration of St George’s Day and its link to the season’s start date, with an ‘Asparagus Run’ from Evesham to the House of Commons generating local and national coverage.

The campaign, run by Pam Lloyd PR, generated £940,393 worth of print coverage, which achieved an audited circulation of over 44 million, reaching an estimated readership of over 132m. In addition, asparagus features ran for five consecutive days on UKTV Food’s Market Kitchen, and the asparagus run was covered on ITV Central News and BBC Midlands Today, as well as regional radio stations.

Web traffic to www.british-asparagus.co.uk increased, with more than double the number of visits to the site in May 2008 compared to May 2007 and more than three times as many pages viewed.

James Hallett, campaign chairman, said: “Demand for asparagus remained high this year, but the crop needs sustained warmth and sunshine to thrive, both of which were in short supply both in the second half of last year and throughout this year’s season. Penetration and volume sales figures are not as healthy as they were in 2007, but last year we had an incredibly good April which brought the crop on early and encouraged consumers out to stores to buy a product which is intrinsically summery.

“This year’s penetration figure stands at 12.4 per cent, the same as in 2006, with sales value down on last year’s total by 6.9 per cent at £16.5m. We estimate that up to 40 per cent of asparagus sold during this year’s season would have been imported to make up the shortfall created by last year’s poor summer weather and this year’s cold spring,” Hallett added.