Avocados From Mexico (AFM) represent the #1 selling brand in the United States. They are a not-for-profit organization responsible for coordinating the marketing activities for the Mexican Hass Avocados Importers, who sell over 1.7 billion pounds of avocados each year. People love Hass avocados because they’re soft, creamy and densely full of nutrients, and primarily come from Mexico—the only place in the world where avocado trees naturally bloom four times a year!

Building The Avocado Nation

Avocados From Mexico want to transform the traditional produce industry with big data and personalized AI. They needed a platform that could engage avo-lovers online, helping them share home-made content, and earn rewards for purchasing avocados through AFM’s new loyalty program.

Polcode’s product & web developers came together to create Avocado Nation, an engagement platform which promotes a healthy lifestyle, encourages people to buy avocados and gets users interacting with the AFM brand identity. Through this process, AFM can also gather customer insights and observe interactions on the platform.

The Avocado Nation platform offers several ways for consumers to engage with AFM. Polcode developed AFM’s new loyalty platform which is comprised of the following elements:

• Studios – User-generated Content Stream
• Shop – Purchasing Avocado-inspired clothing with virtual Avocado Dollars
• Rewards – Exchanging real-life avocado purchases for Avocado Dollars
• Administrative Panel – Enables AFM to manage everything in one place
• Receipt Scanner – Users scan their receipts to earn Avocado Dollars

The Avo-lover’s Digital Experience

Avocado Studios

Content managed by AFM is displayed in the Studios section, which contains photos, recipes, short videos and GIFs. Users can create playlists or browse categories, which can be personalized based on their interests. AFM can manage Studios from the admin panel, removing or adding content, and creating new campaigns around it.

Avocado Shop

A visually stunning, virtual marketplace where Avocado Dollars can be exchanged for rewards—the shop isn’t your typical ecommerce store. Instead, users can acquire Avocado Dollars by showing proof of purchase through the app.

The virtual currency can be exchanged for Avocado-inspired clothing. Additionally, the shop can be easily updated with new products whenever the AFM team wants to run new campaigns or release new product lines.

Avocado Rewards

The Rewards system uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, allowing users to scan their receipts and receive their rewards. We integrated the OCR scanner tool to automate this process, so that AFM campaign managers don’t have to manually verify or award each user. 

There are multiple safety checks along the way, preventing any duplications or unknown variables affecting the validity of Avocado purchases. If scanner returns status which informs about unsuccessful processes, or avocado hasn’t been found, the receipt waits to be manually processed by a CFM campaign manager.

Administrative Panel

AFM also needed a way to easily manage the new marketing platform. With a dedicated admin panel, AFM’s marketers can create campaigns, manage users and company brands. They can also add or remove user-generated content, and process the submission of receipts for Avocado Dollars.

How It Works for Users

A new user registers online via the responsive web app, allowing access anywhere from PC desktop, mobile or tablet displays.

• Users receive an email with an activation link.
• Users log into the Avocado Nation platform, choose a campaign, and begin to upload their receipts

OCR and scanner automation takes over and processes the image to find Avocado purchases and the price paid for it. When successful, users receive an email confirmation, and can claim their Avocado Rewards.

For some campaigns, users can even receive cashback deposited into their Paypal accounts.

If the user selected the PayPal option, they will be asked to enter their phone number which is assigned to the PayPal account.

If the user chooses to redeem Avocado Dollars, they will also get the information about successful transfer.