Social-media platforms are no longer just sharing news and headlines but appearing in them too. As USA TikTok users claim they have become a powerful political voice, here, in South Africa, apple and pear brand Tru-Cape is using the TikTok platform to engage with a younger audience in a healthy-lifestyle promotion for apple variety Kanzi.

With an estimated six million South African users, TikTok, the short-form video app, is a fast growing network that allows users to add their own music or sound free of charge and offers a suite of editing tools to allow for content creation and manipulation.

Kanzi, is a registered, trademarked variety of the apple Nicoter from “parents” Braeburn and Gala. Kanzi’s brand positioning plays on its flavour and texture profile: juicy, tangy sweet and crunchy with the payoff line, Seduce life. Tru-Cape proposed the idea of a campaign using the Kanzi beat to interactive agency, Recode Media, and asked that they propose “influencers” to help drive the message home.

According to Tru-Cape marketing director Conrad Fick, Tru-Cape suggested TikTok for their  successful lockdown campaign. “A TikTok competition where entrants demonstrate how they get healthy with Tru-Cape and Kanzi apples, essentially a repeat of what we did during lockdown, using their own song, dancing or lip-syncing and a Kanzi beat is the plan,” Fick adds that with exercising hours also lifted, entrants have the chance to get out and be active, in turn promoting an overall healthy lifestyle. “Entrants will be asked to show us how they’re getting active with Tru-Cape and Kanzi to stand a chance to win.”

Fick explains that Tru-Cape has already secured strong Facebook, Instagram and Twitter followings but TikTok seems particularly fast growing: “In a short period we have already grown TikTok followers to 1059 and, based on the advice of Recode, selected influencers to help amplify the message.”

In their recently published book, The Newcomers and Their Friends, Tru-Cape staffers Buks Nel and Henk Griessel say that the origin story of Kanzi is best told by founder Johan Nicolaï himself:

“While walking in the orchards in October 1993, I was attracted by the colour of the apples of one seedling. I tasted it and was not disappointed – the apples, not ripe yet, were promising. They were juicy and had a very good sugar/acid balance. I took two apples to my office. One week later my field manager, Paul Van Laer, came into my office. He was very excited. He told me he had found the apple of his life. Before he showed them to me, I pointed to the two apples I had brought from the seedling a week ago. They were from that same seedling!

Some time later I took some of these apples home and showed them to my wife and children. My wife, especially, was attracted by the juicy balanced taste. She spoke about “a hidden treasure”. To protect this concept, I chose the Swahili word, “Kanzi”, meaning ‘hidden treasure’, with the South African flag as a visual trademark.”

This is how the apple variety Nicoter and the trademark Kanzi were born. The name Nicoter had its origin from Nicolaï – i.e. “Nico” and “ter” from the fact that it was the third apple from that breeding programme.”

Tru-Cape Kanzi is available now and for about four months of the year.

See Tru-Cape.com for more.