Australia: Nursery industry unveils new-look campaign to boost plant sales

The Australian nursery industry has unveiled a new-look national consumer campaign encouraging Australians to increase the ‘plant-life balance’ in their homes, their workplaces and their communities.

The Plant Life Balance program is designed to increase demand for Australia’s high-quality nursery stock by getting Australians excited about placing more green life in their homes and promoting the benefits of plants to our health and wellbeing.

The launch marks a new era for Plant Life Balance, which is supported by a suite of resources for retail nurseries and consumers, including plant styling guides and a phone app, to provide Australians with a ‘plant health’ rating for their home.

The nursery industry, together with Hort Innovation and RMIT University contributed to the development of the campaign, which forms part of the industry’s broader marketing effort to increase green space in urban areas by 20 per cent by 2020, under the 202020 Vision initiative.

As with previous campaigns, Plant Life Balance is funded by Hort Innovation using the nursery marketing levy and funds from the Australian Government and is being rolled out across a wide-range of retail nurseries throughout the country from today.

Nursery and Garden Industry Australia (NGIA) CEO Peter Vaughan said the campaign was an exciting development for the industry that will seek to put more plants in Australian homes. “This is a proactive campaign that sees science and innovative technology being used to drive plant sales by harnessing platforms and approaches that suit the modern consumer,” Mr Vaughan said.

“The campaign features seven plant ‘looks’ to suit a range of tastes and, more importantly, improve air quality and wellbeing, by integrating a number of particular plants into the designated space.

“The app, on the other hand, allows users to take a photo of a room then drag and drop a select range of plants, to give both a health rating and a visual on what your new green space will look like.

“The resources are free and easy to use, which can be downloaded via
http://www.plantlifebalance.com.au/the-app/.”

Mr Vaughan said the essence of Plant Life Balance was to promote the variety of benefits provided by the industry and to deliver return on investment to levy-payers, by boosting demand for nursery stock.

“This is an exciting time for Australian nurseries,” he said.

“The campaign taps into the great work of our growers and also past campaigns, to build upon the current green movement that we’re seeing today.

“We’re encouraging production nurseries to explore the looks and app, so they understand the basis of the campaign, and to contribute to its success through providing the right plants and making plant recommendations in the future.

“The flow-on benefits of such a campaign could be significant, so it’s important for nurseries to think about how they can help to promote the program and use as a marketing resource for the benefit of their business.

“We look forward to working with growers on the delivery of the program and to remind Australians of the happiness and health associated with more green life in our homes, our businesses and our communities.

For more information about Plant Life Balance, or to download the phone app, visit: http://www.plantlifebalance.com.au/. Or visit the app store and search for Plant Life Balance

To find out more about the nursery industry’s marketing and R&D projects
currently underway, please visit: http://www.hortinnovation.com.au/nursery.