Marketer of the Year Award finalists announced

PMA Australia-New Zealand and Produce Plus Magazine have announced the five finalists for the PMA-Produce Plus Marketer of the Year Award 2017, now in its sixth year as the premier award for marketing in the Australasian fresh produce and floral industries.

From a strong field of entries, the five finalists are:

• Australian Truss Tomatoes for their ‘Vine ripened. Hand picked. Never bettered’ campaign – a collaborative effort by Costa, Flavorite and Perfection Fresh to increase awareness and consumption of truss tomatoes over the peak summer period.

• Craig Perring of Horticulture Innovation Australia for the ‘Secret Serve’ campaign to increase consumption of onions at mealtimes among parents and their kids.

• Matt Stillwell of Compac Sorting Equipment for the ‘Spectrim Launch’ marketing campaign that targeted a range of stakeholders to create awareness and position the produce grading system as the industry world leader, while also enhancing the brand reputation of their clients’ fresh produce.

• Janice Byrnes on behalf of Zespri’s sales and marketing team for the Zespri 2016 ‘Go for Gold’ Australian marketing campaign that helped increase Zespri’s SunGold kiwifruit sales.

• Julian Carbone and the Lenswood Apples marketing team for the 2016 ‘Rockit Apple’ campaign that launched the new apple variety in Australia, introducing Rockit as a snack apple into the fast moving consumer goods marketplace.

The Marketer of the Year Award, which recognises outstanding achievement over the past year in the marketing of fresh produce in Australia and New Zealand, attracted an impressive scope of entries from all points of the value chain.

“This year, we’ve once again received some incredible entries for this award, showcasing the excellent and innovative work being achieved by fresh produce marketers,” said Produce Plus editor Gabrielle Easter. “With such a range of entries, narrowing it down to just five finalists has been a challenge.”

CEO of PMA Australia-New Zealand Darren Keating added: “This year’s entrants gave us a fantastic list ofcampaigns that collectively are doing a great job at increasing sales of fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers right across the industry. It’s great to see the hard work, creativity and strategy that all of these businesses have put into their marketing activities, and as an industry we should all applaud them for efforts.”

PMA and Produce Plus have congratulated this year’s finalists and thanked all of the nominees for their entries.

A report on the five finalists features in the upcoming Winter 2017 edition of Produce Plus, with the finalists also showcasing their campaigns during the Hort Connections conference in Adelaide on Wednesday 17 May.

The winner of the PMA-Produce Plus Marketer of the Year Award 2017 will be announced during the Hort Connections Gala Dinner at the Adelaide Convention and Exhibition Centre later that night.