Stemilt’s newest apple, Rave, has its sights set on something new this year — being the first verified fruit on Instagram. Stemilt’s First Verified Fruit campaign set sail this week where it’s dedicated to bringing rave-worthy content to Instagram users across the country. Stemilt Senior Marketing Manager Brianna Shales is excited about the possibilities of this digital campaign.
Playing off the fact that Rave is the apple that people rave about, Stemilt’s First Verified Fruit campaign is dedicated to sharing feel-good or “rave-worthy” content including positive and uplifting stories from communities across the country, while driving community engagement and garnering followers.
“Given the world’s current position, we felt this is a fun way to create brand recognition around Rave,” said Shales. “Like everyone else, we’ve had to pivot many of our marketing efforts due to COVID-19, so we chose a digital campaign that focuses on positive, rave-worthy moments to bring a smile to people’s faces.”
The campaign is live now through September, during the apple’s season. Stemilt partnered with multiple Instagram influencers nationwide, who are sharing rave-worthy moments on their Instagram feeds and encouraging their followers to visit Rave’s Instagram profile @raveapples to do the same. Shales said the Stemilt team is working hard to build awareness one person at a time through word-of-mouth marketing and these influencers support that notion. They are using various hashtags, including #PassTheRave to share the apple with not only their followers but with friends, family and neighbors.
“We’ve carefully chosen partners who focus their content on positivity, feel-good stories, amazing recipes and inspiration to bring some light into people’s lives,” said Shales. “Influencers like Kyndra Holley of Peace Love and Low Carb, Jocelyn Brown of Hip Mama’s Place and Katie Lemons of Twist of Lemons have a combined following of nearly 500k followers. They have a tight-knit community that makes them a great fit for celebrating Rave while it’s in season.”
Stemilt is also supporting Rave and the First Verified Fruit campaign by tapping into multiple channels to celebrate the Rave season and FVF campaign, including Spotify, well-known food channel Serious Eats, and social platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Rave also partnered with Eugene, of the @World_Record_Egg who almost broke the internet in 2019 by posting an image of an egg that got 18.7 million likes in just nine days on Instagram — to date, the photo currently has 54.6m likes. Eugene the Egg currently has 6.1 million Instagram followers and is focused on spreading positive messages, making it a great fit for the two to partner.
Rave is a premium apple that comes off the tree a few weeks before most apples. This unique attribute on top of its crisp, refreshing sweet-tart flavor and gorgeous fuchsia-color is what makes it such a successful way to kick off apple season at retail and a big hit among apple lovers.
Rave is a cross between the famous Honeycrisp and MonArk varieties. It was developed through natural cross pollination methods by the same apple breeder who also developed both the Honeycrisp and SweeTango varieties at the University of Minnesota.
“Rave’s early timing sparks the apple category during a non-traditional time for apples,” said Shales. “With its premium quality, fun branding and ‘verifiably’ amazing flavor, it will leave any consumer with a delightful eating experience.”
