IRVINE, CA – California avocados are now available at retail locations with new California brand labels.
The California Avocado Commission’s (CAC) labeling initiative is being backed by a significant level of marketing support to ensure that consumers know to look for them. The marketing initiatives include print, radio and online, including mobile, as well as social media, according to a press release.
CAC President
Tom Bellamore said, “Our goal is to have California avocados with a prominent label designating that point of origin in an artful way that mirrors the messaging CAC presents to consumers and retailers in its marketing campaign.”
The idea to develop a connection between CAC’s consumer advertising campaign and the California brand at point of sale is a concept the California Avocado Commission has supported for more than two decades, according to a press release.
Bellamore continued to explain that even though some packers use labels that recognize California, it is often in fine print and most consumers pass right over it. “We needed to make ‘California’ more prominent and graphically compatible with the designs we use in our marketing campaign. Convincing packers to make a change was not without difficulty. For a variety of legitimate business reasons, many avocado packers had previously not made California branding labeling a priority,” said Bellamore.
The Commission has conducted consumer testing to persuade packers to embrace CAC’s label initiative. “We know based on research that shoppers already prefer premium California-grown avocados,” Bellamore said, “so it was no real surprise that the consumer response was very positive when ‘California’ was clearly visible on labeled fruit.”
CAC hoped to convince one or two packers to launch a pilot program for 2014, but after several packers agreed to try, the majority came aboard, according to a press release. Currently, 10 of the California avocado industry’s 13 largest packers are using or have plans to use California brand labels on the fruit by the start of the 2015 season.
There are currently several sticker options that packers are working with.
