Nutty Election Fertile Ground for National Food Business

Nutty Election Proves Fertile Ground for National Food Business

The never-ending twists and turns of the national election have provided a creative platform for the country’s largest nut importer to boost brand awareness.

Prolife foods this week launched its Vote Nuts campaign, a digital, social and in-store execution rolling out across their Mother Earth and Alison’s Pantry brands designed to leverage the election obsession and celebrate New Zealand consumers’ increasing love of nuts, a category that is delivering year-on-year growth for the Hamilton-based company.

The campaign features nut characters cleverly aligned with the major political parties, and has a bold graphic animation driving consumers to a website where they can register and vote for their favourite nut.

“We think we’ve actually improved on the real election process, because registration and the voting itself is all online. It’s also a First-Past-the-Post system so we’ll have a clear winner and no negotiations,” said Caroline Potter, New Zealand Marketing Manager at Prolife Foods.

“We will be rolling out election news, polls, debate footage and updates from Nut TV’s Nutrick Pecan. It’s smart, it’s relevant, and it’s a way to connect and find some fun amongst the heavy work still going on in Wellington.”

Prolife is one of New Zealand’s largest privately owned and operated food business, delivering over $200 million in sales annually through its Alison’s Pantry and Mother Earth brands. The company’s head office, production plant and warehouse is in Hamilton.

“The nut category is really enjoying its moment in the sun. General nutritional education and awareness among our consumers is improving all the time, and more and more independent research is proving the benefits of daily consumption of nuts,” explained Kristina McCalman, senior brand manager at Prolife.

“This has been a lot of fun to work on with Prolife. They wanted something that was light enough to run post-election but galvanising enough to expose just how much Kiwis love their nuts. The election campaign provided perfect creative fodder and the nuts as cartoon political candidates inject humour and fun,” said Anna Connell, Digital Strategist at Bettle.

“If you watch the videos closely we’ve woven in a few recognisable characters from the New Zealand political scene and as the campaign progresses you’ll see some real-time responses from the nut candidates to voters’ comments as well as commentary from Nutrick.”

Alison’s Pantry supplies high quality nuts, dried fruits, trail mixes and grains through bulk selection bins at New World and Pak’n Save supermarkets, while the Mother Earth brand provides packaged savoury snacks, spreads, nuts and muesli bars.

The campaign went live on 9 October and runs until November 20. Since launching thousands of votes have already been cast, and at the time of writing Cashew was just edging Almond out for the win.

Voters are also in for a win with each vote counting as an entry in a draw to win a 10-day Mediterranean Cruise, which includes a stop in Greece, the birthplace of modern democracy.

ENDS

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