The annual French marketing campaign promoting summer fruits has this week unveiled its promotional plans for the UK, with a fresh new logo and design incorporating France’s national icon - the Eiffel Tower.
The new design follows the EU directive that prohibits state-funded and part-funded campaigns from using the country name for certain campaign uses.
The new logo, pictured, depicts the Eiffel Tower with the words ‘fruits d’été’, which translates as ‘fruits of the summer’. This replaces the Sunshine Fruits from France logo (in use since 1998), and will be used across all European marketing materials promoting the country’s cherries, apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, melons, grapes and pears.
The new-look campaign begins in early July in the UK, with a wholesale-led promotion running across some of the UK’s key wholesale markets (New Covent Garden, Spitalfields, Manchester and Birmingham), offering traders a range of point-of-sale materials for their stands featuring the new design, plus kits for their customers including branded paper bags and shop opening signs. The traders will be encouraged to dress up their stand to win a holiday to France, and runners-up will receive a case of champagne.
Consumer activity will be retail-led, and kicks off in July with tailored promotions running with major retailers. This includes a showcase promotion running in 100 Waitrose stores, with tastings of different summer fruits alongside distribution of product literature and recipe leaflets.
The Yelor Charentais melon, which is available exclusively at Waitrose, will also be promoted separately as part of a joint collaboration with Produce World. A product-specific promotion is also planned at Tesco.
The campaign organisers have reviewed crop forecasts for the coming season and, despite a drop in some volumes, they are predicting a high-quality harvest which could ease trading pressure.
Daniel Soares, international export manager for French summer fruit, said: “The French have achieved an enviable reputation for their quality offering of seasonal summer fruits.
“Although import volumes are smaller than those coming from Spain and we are starting to see more competition, French product has a strong heritage in the consumer’s mind.”
