Apple promotion campaign in UK falls flat

Industry suffers from lack of government investment in marketing
RAY SMUTS
THE UNTIMELY ending of the South African Golden Delicious apple promotion campaign into the UK was one of the more disappointing outcomes of the 2006 fruit export season. This joint initiative between accredited South African exporters and the producers was discontinued due to an inability of the project to keep all participating exporters on board. The same campaign, which was started in 2004, was stymied by a drought in 2005 when it was decided not to promote in case the required volumes did not materialise from drought-stricken orchards. “Importantly, this apple promotion did not imply discounted pricing. The goal was to obtain greater volume off-takes with improved price levels making it a very worthwhile programme for all involved,” said Symington. “Promoting fruit overseas is usually a contentious exercise,” he added. “The sticky issues are the commodity status of the product where other countries ‘free ride’ off your promotion; branding, where multi-nationals understandably prefer to use their brand rather than the country of origin brand; logistical issues where promotional windows in the supermarkets are sometimes mis-timed due to a hiccup of Mother Nature or shipping delays; and finally the issue of market steal, i.e. whether you increase your slice of market share at the expense of your competitor, or whether you and your competitor increase the total size of the market (and hence your own share) by jointly promoting in the same market at the same time.” Interestingly, the South African fruit export industry receives almost no financial assistance from its government to promote its interests abroad, whereas a fiercely competitive country like Chile works with about US$9 million a year to promote its fruit export industry internationally. “While I understand the need for the SA government to instead plough its funds into social upliftment programmes at home, we must be commercially astute enough to realise that for every year this is done, we become less competitive abroad as a nation.” Symington is quick to point out that while Chile holds 27th position in global competitiveness rankings, South Africa – currently in 45th spot – continues to slip down the ranks.