California Almonds sponsored Seoul Fashion Week to raise awareness among Korean consumers of the convenience and health benefits of snacking on almonds at an event focused on beauty and trendsetting — two subjects that are equally important to the Korean consumer.
Seoul Fashion Week, with a 15-year history, is the largest fashion event in Korea, with more than 60 participating fashion brands. It is held twice a year, part of the series of global fashion events following New York, Paris, London and Milan Fashion Weeks. Seoul Fashion Week also marked the beginning of a year-long “Charge Your Day” campaign for the California Almonds marketing program in Korea. The campaign amplifies the message that a handful of almonds in the midmorning can provide a boost of energy and keep the body fully charged throughout the day — just like starting the day with a fully charged cell phone.
Almond Charging Kits
Almond Board of California (ABC) conducted a sampling event with a Charging Station to meet and encourage fashion-conscious consumers. Consumers who visited the Charging Station experienced the invigorating crunch of roasted almonds and received healthy snacking tips from the stylish “Almond Charging Kits,” an exclusive California Almonds clutch-style handbag. Visitors also enjoyed taking pictures at the Charge Your Day photo wall.
To create buzz around its sponsorship and encourage participation at the Charging Station, ABC created a campaign microsite and held a Naver Blog (Naver is Korea’s dominant search engine and blogging platform) and Facebook sharing event. Also, spokesperson Song Haena, a rising model and beauty trendsetter who debuted on the famous TV series “Korea’s Next Top Model,” visited the Charging Station for a photo session and shared why and how she snacks on almonds.
Also invited to the Charging Station were influential fashion and lifestyle bloggers who posted blog posts about their experience with California Almonds at Seoul Fashion Week. Additionally, to further share the almond-snacking experience with consumers who were not able to visit the Charging Station, a campaign video was created and used to conduct a Facebook sharing event.
The sponsorship and offline sampling event at the Charging Station reached more than 8,300 consumers and generated more than 700 Instagram followers. Through media outreach and a photo session with spokesperson Song Haena, more than 132 million impressions were generated, and the series of online events gained 176,265 social media impressions and a 70% engagement rate on Facebook.
