Pop! Cherries in Taiwan
Published in Gastronomica in Winter 2010.
Photo of eVonne with cherries courtesy of Northwest Cherries, 2004.
What if you had never tasted a dark, sweet cherry? That was the situation U.S. cherry growers encountered in the early 1990s, when they determined to build an export market in Taiwan for Northwest cherries, mainly dark red Bings and blushing yellow Rainiers. Though cherries have grown in greater China for millennia, the native varieties are as different in look and flavor from Bings as long, slender eggplants are from the massive, Italian globes. Twenty-five years ago few Taiwanese had tasted the plump, maroon cherries; even fewer were willing to spend what amounted to eight dollars a pound to buy them.
But the Washington State Fruit Commission saw this lack of familiarity as an opportunity. Eric Melton, the International Promotion Director, and Chris Lin, their marketing representative in Taiwan, conceived of a campaign to cast cherries as youthful and sexy. In 1997, Northwest Cherries, one of the Commission’s promotional arms, arranged for a Taiwanese record company to fly the budding pop star Gigi Leung to Washington to film a music video.
Northwest Cherries’ spokesman, Andrew Willis, describes that first “Cherry Girl” deal: “We flew over her whole entourage – her manager, hair and makeup, parents; the director, his cameraman, light, sound, and gear. We’d take them around to places of beauty in Washington. Together, we’d weave together a narrative, meet a few times about concepts. We’d field their requests for, say, a vintage red convertible.” The Commission paid for all production costs but did not pay Leung or the record company any fees. Their only stipulation was that some portion of the video be shot in a fruiting cherry orchard.
The video was a success. “Gigi became a superstar in Taiwan,” explains Teresa Baggarley of the Commission. “With that came a price tag beyond the budget for our growers; so we sought new stars. Next came Jessica, then Lillian Ho, and, most recently, eVonne, currently one of Taiwan’s biggest pop sensations.” Over the past decade the Commission has sponsored roughly a dozen music videos, all featuring beautiful, young, female singers. Seven of the songs have made it to the number one spot on Taiwan’s pop charts. (It helps that MTV Asia plays the videos every hour.) Each year the Commission released the videos to coincide with the peak of the Bing and Rainier cherry harvest from late June through early August; the singer held signings, interviews, and shows at grocery stores. For a yearly investment of approximately one hundred thousand dollars, the Commission estimates that it received annual advertising exposure worth roughly four million dollars.
The marketing campaign has worked. Taiwan, which imports 100 percent of its cherries, is now the second largest export market for Northwest cherries. In 1996, before the first video’s release, Taiwan imported 293,000 twenty-pound boxes of Northwest cherries; by 2001 the amount had grown to nearly 800,000 twenty-pound of these boxes. Export value also rose, increasing from less than eight million dollars to more than $31.5 million at its height. Thanks in part to the videos, the cherries have become more expensive, despite their greater availability. As Baggarley notes, cherries are now a status symbol, not unlike diamonds. In Taiwan, she says, “cherries are a girl’s best friend.”
The pop stars imbue the cherries with sexiness and youth, but the cherries themselves offer the allure of something exotic and foreign. The videos often depict an exaggerated, romanticized vision of America. In one recent video by eVonne, the star is shown driving along an open country road in a souped-up classic car; her journey is interrupted by shots of a couple smooching on a carousel and little blonde girls dressed up for church playing in an orchard. Here is rural America at its most idealized. Several directors borrow heavily from American mythology. In one video Lillian Ho is driving through the barren, eastern Washington desert when her car breaks down. A handsome Native American man in face paint, wearing a leather shirt adorned with bones, talons, and white feathers, comes to her rescue by sweeping her onto his horse. Next she finds herself in a canoe with a team of Native American men paddling in unison. This video, like many others, ends with the singer triumphantly reaching an orchard where clusters of red Bing cherries glimmer in dappled sunlight amid emerald-green leaves. From the Native American men to this image of Shangri-la, the cherry experience is portrayed as fantasy. Eating this succulent morsel from the Northwest, the video implies, will transport you to a world of unimaginable pleasure.
With the recent downturn in Taiwan’s economy, cherry sales have slumped, and Andrew Willis believes that the videos may have reached their saturation point with young audiences. So the Commission has stopped its MTV video campaign and is focusing marketing efforts on the healthfulness of cherries. It is also putting more energy into the nascent Mainland Chinese market. Nevertheless, last summer the Commission contracted with three Taiwanese models—Mimi Liu, Novia Lin, and Tiffany Hui—to serve as cherry spokespersons. At a July press appearance they seductively ate cherry after cherry while talking about antioxidants and low-calorie count, red-and-white gingham-lined picnic baskets in hand.
I recently e-mailed my Taiwanese friend Yi Pan to ask about the impact of the early MTV videos and their glamorous stars. She responded: “they are sweet girls! haha. maybe if i eat cherries like they do i will be pretty like them!!” Yi Pan was being tongue-in-cheek, but her answer leaves no doubt: the marketing campaign worked its magic on her generation.
Here is a montage of the cherry videos, put together by Zak Margolis, courtesy of Northwest Cherries.
