2023 Assessment Newsletter

Content Development Following the initial research stage of each account, content development was initiated, including producing monthly social plans for the UK, France, and Germany, with the French being translated in-house and the German being outsourced. In addition to the social media content, Liquid also created several videos for use on the UK TikTok and French Instagram. Influencers and Engagement In the first half of the year, Liquid carried out extensive research in identifying influencers who would be key to supporting the collective social strategy. Liquid’s social team engages with the followers through active community management across the three regions, including replying to comments and DMs, as well as completing the translations for both French and German in-house. Public relations Liquid performed an intense deep dive into the key targets in all markets, collating media lists, and liaising with the agencies on the ground to get these targets agreed upon. They also created information packs which highlighted suppliers, key messaging, and the varieties of NC sweetpotatoes. Alongside this, Liquid built an awareness calendar detailing all the key calendar dates to be used on social media and in active press pitching. For trade activity, we established key themes for potential trade features and identified key trade shows, providing recommendations to the NCSP team. Additionally, Liquid provided daily news updates to the NCSPC staff, looking for relevant fruit and vegetable sector news. This activity has proven valuable in awareness across the different territories, and also provided hooks to proactively speak to the media. A marketing strategy was formed through numerous research activities. This included market research into all three territories, where the teams visited major supermarkets and fresh markets to understand the landscape of sweetpotato products, both fresh and in other forms e.g., baby food, dog food, ready meals, snacks, and flour. Westminister Kingsway Culinary College March Competition In April, during NCSPC’s Europe visit, Westminster Kingsway College hosted a cookery competition for the students, for which NCSPC E.D. Grainger was one of the judges. The students created two courses, each championing North Carolina sweetpotatoes as an ingredient. Liquid helped organize the competition, from liaising with the Westminster Kingsway College and creating briefing documents, to organizing the prizes. The winners received a cash prize as well as a set of knives from Flint and Flame engraved with the Commission’s logo. The Liquid team received the winning recipes and will feature each on the website and social media. Liquid’s services have included copywriting across the course of the first six months, including trade releases, ad hoc journalist opportunity pieces, a Liquid appointment release and more.

15