IOC Takes Its Olive Oil Campaign to Brazil
The International Olive Council has launched a campaign to get Brazilians eating more olive oil and table olives, under the slogan “Vai com tudo o que é bom”, it goes with everything that’s good. It runs to the end of 2014 in Brazil’s five biggest cities. Here is what the council is spending the money on, why Brazil, and what a generic campaign can and cannot do.
What was launched
The campaign was unveiled at the School of Culinary Arts of Anhembi Morumbi University in São Paulo, with the IOC’s executive director Jean-Louis Barjol and deputy director Ammar Assabah presenting it. It covers São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and Porto Alegre, and it is run by the Valencia agency AGR!, which won the contract last year. According to the IOC’s tender documents, the budget is about €1.2 million.
The plan is practical rather than glossy:
- Tastings in major supermarkets across the country.
- An Olive Week, with restaurants putting dishes made with olive oil on their menus.
- Recipe machines at the point of sale: press a button for fish, rice or pasta and get a recipe that uses olive oil.
- A gourmet van touring big supermarkets in Rio and São Paulo with live cooking and tastings.
- Information workshops for health specialists, the gourmet trade, opinion leaders, journalists and bloggers, and a recipe competition for culinary students.
The council says the campaign should open new business for producing countries while showing Brazilian consumers how versatile olive oil and table olives are in their own cooking.
Why Brazil
Brazil is already one of the world’s biggest importers of olive oil, and it produces almost none of its own. It is also growing. The IOC’s September market newsletter shows Brazilian imports of olive oil and olive pomace oil up 4 percent in the first ten months of the 2012/13 crop year, October to July, while imports fell in the United States, Canada and Australia. Table olive imports did even better, up 24 percent.
| Imports, October 2012 to July 2013 | Change on a year earlier |
|---|---|
| Brazil, olive oil and pomace oil | +4% |
| Brazil, table olives | +24% |
| United States, olive oil and pomace oil | -5% |
| Australia, olive oil and pomace oil | -10% |
South America is also moving closer to the council. Argentina joined in 2009 and Uruguay became a member this summer. Brazil, the region’s biggest market, is a buyer rather than a member, which is exactly the kind of country the IOC’s promotion budget exists for. We noted five years ago that Brazil was discovering olive oil; the council clearly thinks there is a lot more to discover.
What a generic campaign can do
The IOC does not sell oil. A campaign like this promotes the category, and the producers who benefit are the ones already on Brazilian shelves. That is fine as far as it goes. The risk in any young market is that the first oil a new customer tries is a tired, cheap bottle that has sat in a hot warehouse, and the lesson learned is that olive oil tastes of not very much. Tastings run by people who know what they are pouring are worth more than any slogan, and the plan has plenty of those.
The tender also asks the agency to promote the health benefits of olive oil and table olives. That part needs care. The good evidence is about using olive oil in place of other fats as part of a whole diet, not about magic in the bottle, and a campaign built on the first message will age better than one built on the second.
In most import markets, much of what sells is labeled simply “olive oil”, which in the IOC’s grade system means mostly refined oil with a little virgin added. It is not a fraud, but it is not what the tasting stand is pouring either. A campaign that teaches Brazilians to look for “extra virgin” and a recent date will do more for honest producers than one that simply sells more of whatever is on the shelf.