Sponsorship
Capital Country Truffle Festival 2012
This is a call for sponsors who can take advantage of this outstanding event for food lovers, in the premiere Australian truffle growing district.
Why do we need another Festival?
Well, there is a growing number of truffle growers in the Capital Country area, most of them on smaller ‘truffieres’ (that’s the French for a truffle farm) that have just recently planted their truffle infected oak or hazel nut trees. With no real marketing body yet organised, some of the proactive ones were looking ahead to a time when their trees start producing and for ways to increase the local demand.
There is no established ‘truffle culture’ in Australia, so we’re missing an understanding of this amazing produce for other than in fine dining. In Europe where they have grown wild for centuries, people know when they will be available, they will know where to buy them, or which neighbour hunts for them and will trade or sell. Street truffle markets in season are a feature of many small towns and prices are negotiated after hours of haggling. This is a produce that is to be enjoyed while it’s available. In Australia the price is set each season based on what the return would be exporting into the Italian and French market as the bigger growers in West Australia and Tasmania already do.
We felt we needed an event that educated not just the future eaters of truffles but also the young chefs and cafe owners who have had little experience of using them. They don’t know the quantities to buy per person, how long it will keep and are frightened handling of an expensive ingredient. So, the Capital Country Truffle Festival was born to share that knowledge around.
The Festival Marketing
We had two years of amazing success given the small self funded promotion we could afford. With development funding from the ACT Government to help promote this event in 2011 we placed the festival message (and our sponsor’s logos and message) to a much wider audience than the brochures and posters that we’ve had in previous years. We have always received lots of good PR in local, interstate and national magazines due to the unique nature of truffles, and the accompanying enthusiasm of food writers and columnists continues to surprise us. We’ve been given Event funding again on the success of the 2011 event.
In 2012 we will be able to again place marketing in the local Canberra Times Food & Wine section and regional lifestyle publications. Given the interest from Sydneysiders who came to last year’s festival, there will be a series of ads in the Sydney Morning Herald ‘Good Living’ magazine leading up to the Festival and during it, to draw more of them to visit. We will also again have our brochures and posters across the State and Regional Tourist Offices. Every participating restaurant will have an information slip that sits with every dinner setting telling the story of truffles and explaining why they are such a luxury. The restaurateurs asked for it, we agreed and we think it’s a great opportunity for your sponsor logo to be there too.
The benefits for your company
Truffles are a luxury product, they will add their sense of something rare and exclusive to your association with the Festival.
There will be significant exposure of your product name and logo on all our marketing. There will be a dedicated section on the Truffle Festival website for your message or extensive links to your own site (and help with multi-media content if that’s preferred). We know the website drives a lot of traffic to our partner restaurants because it was often our only promotional medium for some events. Events which were often filled just by email enquiries.
We have Facebook page and run Twitter notifications during the festival. Food Bloggers have driven a lot of interest and we’ll be sure that they’re included in our new media mix. We can easily share that traffic with your social media marketing, interacting and we can offer fresh food related content for the months of June and July.
And of course, you’ll have to try truffles yourself (if you are not already hooked!)
The major sponsors will be our guests at the gala dinners and we will work with you to see how you can add some of the mid-winter magic of truffles to your organisation. Would your office enjoy a truffle tasting for example?
Don’t you need to add some mid-winter magic to your marketing?
We’ve got lightweight display stands and pull up banners for every partner location who wants them. (Last year we could only afford a few and they were in high demand as we moved them around.) Again they would have your logo
showing at the point where the diner is enjoying a positive truffle experience.
Capital Country is unique
That’s because we have an expanding truffle growing region surrounded by a wide range of country and city restaurants, winery cellar doors and cafes who can use the product. Canberra will become the prime place in Australia where travellers will come to enjoy truffles, and the locals get the benefits of a wide range of venues at different price ranges. Your sponsorship will help make that happen.
Our experience is that everyone wants to try truffles (not all of them like the earthy flavour – described more than once as smelling like ‘sex and old socks’) but we’ve found with one venue that offered truffle shaved on a simple pizza, the diner then ordered one of the the main truffle dishes on the menu. Our low degustation dinner prices amazed Sydney visitors with their value.
And it’s not just eating out that makes up the Festival. People want to cook with them themselves. We have many more venues this year offering truffles for sale and the Growers will again have a stall each Saturday morning at the Canberra Region Farmer’s’ Market letting people see and smell before they buy, and selling in small quantities. (People inevitably come back the next week and buy twice as much.)
A Festival-goer Profile
As part of the 2011 funding we’re able for the first time to do some real surveying of our festival-goers. We know they’re a wide food focused group from people who attend the Farmers’ Markets to do their fresh food shopping, to those who love fine dining. Then there are regular diners who go to the lower cost cafes and order a truffle dishes for novelty or as a seasonal treat. They’re wine drinkers and the beer drinkers who went to our small city brewery for a ‘truffle infused’ ale. They’re prepared to travel from Sydney, love the idea of truffle hunts and stay overnight to dine out.
We have a report on visitation and visitor profiles that we are happy to share with you.
The Media Exposure
Because this is a unique product, the food and travel media love the mid-winter magic story. We’re getting exposure now in national magazines and have supplied information and images to publications such as airline magazines and television programs.
This will mean that your sponsorship will be seen not just in ACT and NSW but nationwide.
The Ongoing Benefit
The sponsor goodwill will follow the truffle experience after the Festival but because our promotion starts in June and goes into August, the message lingers. After the event the 2012 website remains with your branding until around April 2013, but all the images and videos will carry your logo as long as we have them on the site.
You can also use the images and video we make in whatever media you choose for as long as you wish. Great value.
(c) 2012 Canberra & Capital Region Truffle Festival. All rights reserved.