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“And we’re doing it. We started with a 20% consumer brand preference in 2013, and now we are by far the preferred brand of avocados in the country. To accomplish that, you need to believe in the power of brand building.”
AFM’s function has always been two-fold, Luque added: accelerating avocado demand in the US while building a brand for Mexican avocados.
“That’s been in our playbook since day one, and that’s how much we believe in branding. Good branding creates meaning and emotions in consumers’ minds, and that translates into good value if it’s well developed. That’s what we want.”
In 2022, AFM rolled out a new initiative that show its commitment to branding.
Brandformance, as it’s called, uses research to pre-test each creative asset AFM develops to be sure it delivers in its brand messaging and future purchase intention at the same time.
“They both need to perform in both areas to move forward,” Luque said. “That is making branding accountable and more important than before.”
In 2015, AFM decided that it wanted to develop its brand on the biggest marketing stage in the US – the Super Bowl.
Eight Super Bowls later, that branding effort has generated close to 62 billion impressions for the AFM brand.
Parallel to that, Luque said, AFM has one of the best go-to-market implementations in the industry, which has delivered multiple partnerships with top CPG brands and placed hundreds of thousands of additional displays in stores.
Thanks to those efforts, AFM can now leverage its brand to national partnerships like the one it launched with Coca Cola for Cinco de Mayo.
“Not every produce brand can partner with Coke in a national way like we are.”
