Bananas are an important part of our daily lives, and as surprising as it may be, today we are celebrating National Banana Lovers Day. This past Sunday we had National Banana Split Day. Why all the focus on bananas? As a marketing agency that has been involved with one of the world’s finest organic banana producers, Organics Unlimited, for many years, we live and breathe bananas at Oster and Associates.
When you go to the market and buy a bunch of bananas, you often don’t realize the marketing channels that small piece of fruit has already experienced. True, most of what you see is based on good growing and handling practices, but without the marketing it wouldn’t necessarily be on the shelf waiting for you to buy it at just the correct ripeness. And for all of the horrors you have may heard about poor treatment of workers and their exposure to dangerous chemicals, it’s good to know (which you learn through marketing) that not all bananas involve this same exploitation.
Oster has marketed fresh produce throughout most of our 27 year history, so I guess you would say that makes us something of an expert in the field. As much as the shopper often looks at a banana or an avocado or a tomato as a commodity, most companies who produce that fruit like to think of themselves as unique – moving out of the realm of commoditization. And our job as marketers is to find the things that we think wholesalers, retailers or consumers would consider buying hot buttons.
In September we are celebrating GROW Month, and we hope you’ll join us. What is GROW Month? Something that actually affects more people than Banana Lovers Day. GROW is a program that takes a small surcharge from every box of GROW bananas that is sold and gives it back to programs that change lives in the areas of Mexico and Ecuador where these bananas are grown. It provides education for promising young people who happen to have been born into poverty. It educates on safe drinking water practices for families in Ecuador. It gives the gift of vision to workers and their families through clinics twice a year. It offers free dental exams and dental hygiene education to people who have never had dental check-ups. Wouldn’t you rather buy a banana that does all of that? It’s part of what we do in marketing – letting you know that your purchase does so much. It’s a life saver for these people, and for us it’s also a differentiator. It’s what makes our jobs easy and enriching.
Now go enjoy a banana – and make it a GROW banana!
-Bev
