Primland

French kiwifruit marketer Primland has taken its social media presence international with the launch of a WeChat application in China, hosted by a communications partner from Shanghai. This will be followed in September by an application on the Taiwanese equivalent, Line.

The moves are part of a social media drive by the company that started with the February creation of the Oscar kiwifruit Facebook page, now available in French and English, which advises visitors to “Be Kiwi Be Happy” and offers product information and recipes.

Primland sees this as the idea means of communicating with bloggers and online media, especially during tasting workshops across the world, and developing its Oscar and Nergi marks into affinity brands.

“We want to be in tune with our clients,” says managing director Jean-Baptiste Pinel. “Oscar should be a brand that listens, explains, learns, that knows how to share and asks consumers for advice in the relationship of proximity they find themselves in. In order to achieve this, we have added a young community manager to our team so that content will really reflect the company's daily life and values. We hope to be as successful as we were with Nergi, our baby kiwi, which in just two years has reached a figure of 20,000 fans.”