AUSSIE banana growers intend to sing, dance and jive their way back from devastation, with the help of the hit television series, Glee.
The Australian Banana Growers Council (ABGC) has announced what could be its most ambitious branding exercise ever, with plans to partner with the Emmy-award winning US series about a club of high school students that enjoy singing and dancing.
The announcement was made at the ninth Australian Banana Industry Congress this week at Coolum on the Sunshine Coast.
Recently appointed marketing manager for bananas, David Weisz, Horticulture Australia Limited (HAL), gave details of the tie-in which is set to begin later this year, possibly around September when banana production is expected to have returned to normal levels following Cyclone Yasi.
Mr Weisz said the promotion will go beyond just advertising within Glee, but also include flying one of the stars from the series out to Australia.
Exactly which actress or actor it might is yet to be confirmed but he said he or she will be involved in a four day press junket.
“They are going to be acting as the Australian bananas brand ambassador when they are here,” Mr Weisz said.
There will also be a competition for a fan to head to Los Angeles to visit the set, all done via the Channel 10 music show, Video Hits.
The branding is in line with the ABGC’s vision of increasing consumer demand for bananas, particularly within the younger, 18-39 year old age group.
According to Mr Weisz, Glee has been the highest rating show in the US for three years and the number two show in Australia, behind MasterChef.
He said it reaches about 1.3 million Australian viewers per episode, the majority of which are within the 18-39 demographic.
So just how big is Glee’s reach? Apart from its 14,000,000 Facebook fans, a recent episode featuring the songs of Fleetwood Mac sky-rocketed the decades-old album back into popularity.
“That album, having been promoted on the show, has gone from complete obscurity to number two on the Billboard charts in America,” Mr Weisz said.
“Glee is an unbelievable vehicle to latch on to with bananas and moving forwards.”
The last major banana branding campaign which reaped positive rewards involved sponsoring the Australian version of the television program, So You Think You Can Dance, also on Channel 10.
Mr Weisz described bananas and Glee as a “perfect fit”.
“We anticipate that the results of this sponsorship are going to be much stronger, much bigger, and get out to a lot more people than So You Think You Can Dance, and anything we’ve done before,” he said.
“We’re really excited about it.
“Our investment is actually a little bit less than what we invested in So You Think You Can Dance but we’re anticipating and we’re expecting to get a lot more bang for our buck going forward.
“We’ve negotiated really, really hard with Channel 10 and I think we’re coming to a really fantastic point where we are going to be able to take bananas to the next level.”
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