Commission’s 2020-2021 Social Media Activity Garners More Than 24 Million Impressions

The California Avocado Commission’s social media program offers the Commission an opportunity to engage with its target consumers, called “Premium Californians” and expand the California avocado fan base via entertaining and informative content. By sharing diverse social content, the Commission builds awareness of the fruit’s unique locale, its seasonality, availability, and fresh premium quality thereby driving brand loyalty and preference for California avocados both in and out of season. Further, California avocado fans can share key brand messaging directly with their own audiences on social media increasing brand credibility and preference naturally through word-of-mouth exposure. From November 2020 through October 2021, the Commission’s social posts on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest generated more than 24 million impressions and 2 million engagements.

This past season the Commission expanded its “The best avocados have California in them” campaign with new creative rolled out across its social channels. With more Americans taking  road trip vacations, the Commission shared a series of road trip videos highlighting unique California avocado recipes paired with iconic California locations. The videos, which were showcased during peak California avocado season, provided fans with recipe inspirations well suited to on-the-go vacations. In addition, new campaign creative was shared during peak cultural conversations, such as Earth Day, to embed California avocados in trending discussions on social media. To keep California avocados at the forefront of culinary culture, the Commission also developed recipe content that reflected hot trends in meal preparation such as multicooker California avocado recipes.

Consistent recipe content posts, which piqued fans’ interest in a variety of California avocado dishes, were supplemented by social posts highlighting California avocado nutrition information and how-to tips during peak season. To make it easy for consumers to locate California avocados in stores nearby, the Commission relied on promoted social retail content to drive Premium Californians in geo-targeted areas to local retail stores carrying the fruit. By pairing California avocados’ brand messaging with specific retailer messaging in targeted, paid posts the Commission was able to illustrate the California difference and why the premium price of California avocados is worth it. Other social media posts included links to the Commission’s online store locator tool to encourage California avocado purchases at retail partners’ locations. Paid retail content on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter yielded more than 2.8 million impressions and 24,500 engagements.

The Commission also amplified the presence of the California Avocado Merchandise Shop throughout the season with a variety of creative social media tactics designed to drive traffic to the online store. To draw attention to the merchandise shop during key selling moments, social posts featured special promotional codes — a 15% discount for Black Friday weekend and one week in December — as well as compelling calls-to-action, such as “Free shipping for orders over $60.” Creative California avocado merchandise visuals and pictorial carousels were created to capture the interest of online fans and paired with shoppable integration features on Instagram and Facebook that allow consumers to seamlessly purchase featured items directly from a social media post. To inspire consumers with gift-giving ideas, the Commission crafted Pinterest Pins and Instagram Story gift guides highlighting California avocado merchandise uniquely suited to Premium California passions.

During the peak summer months, social posts featured California avocado merch with messaging celebrating California Avocado Month, the start of summer holidays (near Memorial Day) and the Fourth of July. To celebrate National Avocado Day, the Commission launched an Instagram giveaway featuring the online shop and gifting ten California avocado fans with merchandise they could wear in their local communities to showcase their love of the Golden State fruit and build word-of-mouth awareness of California avocados.