South Korea is the world’s seventh-largest market for almonds. In 2017 US almond exports to South Korea accounted for 3% of total US nut export volume.

As people have started consuming more nuts, the competition between different nut companies in South Korea has been fierce, with companies distinguishing their products according to respective nutrient counts and benefits. In 2017, the California Walnut Commission (one of Almond Board of California’s main competitors) started promoting walnuts as the perfect nutritional package, highlighting that they are beneficial for the brain and metabolic system. In 2018, companies selling newly emerged products such as Brazil Nuts, Cacao Nibs and Sacha Inchi gained significant popularity after launching campaigns for their new offerings.

In order to differentiate almonds from the products being marketed by these traditional and emerging competitors, we needed to think outside the box to accentuate the uniqueness of almonds.

We focused on the natural benefits that are distinct to almonds. Of all tree nuts, almonds have the highest levels of vitamin E, which is an antioxidant that protects skin cells from the free radicals produced by the sun’s rays, pollution, cigarette smoke, and other environmental factors. Almonds are also high in dietary fiber, which helps with weight management.

We have also taken advantage of a recent shift in South Korean beauty standards. Recently, Korean women have started to consider staying healthy to be just as important in sustaining their ‘beauty’ as maintaining their outward appearance. As a result, thinking on how one establishes a foundation for beauty has changed, leading to an increased number of people seeking healthy diets as a path towards not just health, but beauty.

We based our strategy on these insights, building integrated marketing campaigns that accentuated the beauty and weight management-related benefits of almonds.

Our target audience is women aged between 20 and 39, who are trend sensitive and open-minded. South Korean women in their 20s and 30s are not only interested in beauty and weight management, but also record high rates of social media use. They primarily use social media to get information and communicate with one another.

With this in mind, we carried out diverse integrated marketing campaigns, in both the online and offline spheres, to establish almonds as the ideal ‘beauty snack’. Our campaign was broken down into three distinct stages, to be implemented between 2017 and 2020.

In stage one we told our story, delivering the benefits of almonds to our target audience. Then, in stage two we gave that audience a voice to go into the world and expand the story. Finally, in the third stage, we will engage the combined audience deeply by sharing the expanded story.

In August 2018, we launched ‘Almonds, Your Beauty Secret’ as part of the second stage of the campaign. We launched the campaign across a variety of platforms in order to maximize impact.

In December, we held an event called ‘Almond Beauty Studio’, in which we invited over 2,000 members of our target audience to experience the beauty benefits of almonds. During the event, five attendants were chosen to have their pictures taken by a professional photographer and published alongside our key message in Marie Claire magazine.

In April 2019, we ran a digital advocate program in which we collaborated with YouTube influencers to produce a series of nine videos outlining the health and beauty-related benefits of almonds. Furthermore, in June of the same year we sponsored a beauty-related TV program to further convey how almonds help people establish a foundation for sustainable beauty.