2. What was the problem/opportunity faced by the client?
When Simon Gray first came to Propaganda to discuss his business in 2008, his biggest challenge was how he should best take advantage of the multiple opportunities that presented themselves to Boost.
The business had achieved significant and impressive growth in just six years of trading, and had established an impressive and valuable network of trade relationships, predominantly in the wholesale and cash and carry sector. Gray knew his business was at an important crossroads and he readily recognised the need to work with people who would challenge him and explore alternatives that might not be readily apparent, while at the same time respecting the strong business principles upon which Boost was established.
Gray realised that to truly leverage the power of the opportunities open to him, he had to first address a number of fundamental issues and considerations:
• Evolving Boost from its position as a trading brand to a recognisable consumer brand valued and chosen by retailers and consumers simultaneously
• Maintaining and growing market share in a highly lucrative and attractive market segment for competitors (incumbent and new entrants) to deliver continuous incremental growth (volume and value)
• Establishing a compelling and relevant point of difference that conveyed the true personality of the brand and its difference
• Growing the business whilst protecting and nurturing the entrepreneurial ethos and commitment
• Fully leveraging the strength of the trade relationships the brand had established and delivering focus and business emphasis in the areas of greatest opportunity (current or future)
• Providing a clear framework, set of guidelines and validated trade / consumer insights to support innovation and range extensions
Following initial conversations, it was clear that Boost was a business with almost limitless opportunities ahead of it but it ran the risk of trying to do too much, too quickly. The absence of structure was jeopardising what the business had achieved to date, yet the introduction of too rigid a structure carried the threat of losing the entrepreneurial essence of the business. In short, we needed to arrive at a delicate balance of direction and planning for the brand that recognised and celebrated the cultural ethos of the business.
3. Brief project background
Our starting point with Boost was to embark upon a Discovery programme that saw Propaganda consultants conduct a brand review from a 360 degree perspective. Over an initial three-month period, the Propaganda team embarked upon a programme of research and insight generation with multiple audiences:
• The internal team, to understand business process, objectives and aspirations, and performance
• Existing trade customers and business partners, to gather firsthand feedback about their perspectives and experiences of Boost and the energy drinks sector overall
• Regular energy drink consumers, to understand their needs, motivations, experiences and perceptions
• Trade media and commentators, to identify key trends, performance indicators and perspectives on the future
The insight we gleaned throughout this programme became the keystone for the future brand development and strategy that would help unlock incremental sales growth for an already successful business.
4. Consulting activity
4.1 Knowledge before assumption
Extensive knowledge and experience existed within the Boost business, and absorbing this knowledge was critical to arriving at a credible and true point of difference. However, an independent insight and perspective on the brand was essential to unearth the truth about the brand and the opportunity.
The 12-week Discovery programme included a top-team workshop, one-to-one interviews with the Boost senior team and sales staff, in-depth interviews with trade buyers across a broad cross-section of existing customers, focus groups with loyal energy drink consumers (including need-states analysis), telephone interviews with trade media contacts, competitor audit and profiling, market trends and predictions, and trade & retail mystery shopping.
Our ultimate aim was to gain a true and independent reflection of the Boost brand; its perceived strengths, areas for development, market opportunities and business challenges.
4.2 Defining a brand proposition
The findings of Discovery were central to our recommendations for the development and launch of the new brand proposition, the phasing of the brand rollout, defining the priority target audiences and establishing key elements of the plan.
4.2.1 Tell the story
From the audiences we spoke to in Discovery, the difference about Boost was clear and compelling; the brand just needed to shout about it more loudly and with more confidence. In short, Boost had a great story, they just need to tell it to more people. The Discovery research validated what the internal team at Boost had told us from the very beginning, that Boost was a brand that offered ‘true value’ – taste, performance and value for money pricing – providing strong margins for the trade and a strong value proposition for the consumer. In fact, the only perceived problem was that Boost had low awareness with retailers, and even lower awareness with consumers. We needed to shout about Boost to retailers first to increase the brand’s presence at retail, and then shout about it to consumers so they would pick it off the shelf and pay for it.
Recommended action:
It would have been easy for us to recommend that Boost develop a consumer campaign that raised awareness and interest amongst the end user but this would have been ineffectual. Why? We couldn’t be sure where Boost was sold and there was no point driving consumers into the arms of another brand if we weren’t in their local retailer. Instead we recommended a staged trade strategy to raise awareness and buy-in with trade and retail audiences as the first phase:
• Creative articulation of the value proposition for wholesale and retail trade audiences
• Rebranded trade website communicating the powerful brand proposition
• Trade advertising in key retail publications to communicate the value proposition
• In-depot marketing communications activity (e.g. bay branding, bus stops, tower-ends & brand/promotional flyers) to raise awareness and interest at the point of sale for retailers visiting a cash and carry.
• Strategic PR campaign with key trade titles to raise awareness of the brand portfolio, its difference and its relevance to the independent trade.
4.2.2 Get even closer to customers
Trade research identified strong, warm and loyal trade relationships from some of the country’s most influential and successful wholesale buying groups and independents - a relationship envied by many, larger brands. The trade welcomed the Boost approach to the soft drinks sector as refreshing, agile, responsive, entrepreneurial, progressive and partnership-focussed. The most important trade insight was their appetite to develop an even deeper and more successful relationship with Boost, with the objective of driving further distribution of the brand into the independent retail sector.
Recommended action:
It was clear that Boost needed to take advantage of the trade’s desire to ‘get closer’. While other brands struggle to get focussed face-time with this sector, Boost was seen as a tool to unlock profits for the trade, and as such was in a prime position to leverage the opportunity. Our recommendation was clear:
• Design and implement a key account strategy that recognised and reflected differing trade needs and aspirations for the brand
• Work closely with key trade accounts to co-author business plans that encouraged shared ownership of sales targets and helped ensure volume uplifts (and outperformance where possible)
• Explore additional trade channels for distribution of the brand (e.g. food service, on-trade)
4.2.3 Engaging the whole team
Any strategy is only as strong as the people who implement and deliver it. We understood from the very earliest stages that involving the entire Boost team (finance, credit control, production, sales, marketing and business partners) in the brand development journey would have a fundamental and critical influence on its success (or failure). The internal team played a key role in the earliest stages of the Discovery programme and they were equally important once the brand proposition had been developed and brought to life creatively.
Recommended action:
At the earliest stage following the definition of the brand proposition, the internal team and key business partners were taken through the findings of Discovery, the implications, the brand development and the subsequent strategy via a workshop session. In the subsequent months, Propaganda worked closely with the sales team to co-author a suite of on-brand new business and sales materials that both reflected the newly articulated brand proposition and were fit for purpose across a diverse customer base.
In the subsequent months, particularly at times of annual planning, Propaganda (as brand advisor) visited many customers along with the sales team, to help author business plans that leveraged significant incremental growth for both parties. The subsequent plans have seen Boost achieve increased visibility, deeper penetration and build closer relationships within existing trade customers, as well as successfully converting new trade customers across the UK. Boost has also successfully started a dialogue with retailers, via their wholesale supplier, to drive distribution and ultimately ensure Boost becomes a staple on the ‘shopping list’ when retailers visit their cash and carry or speak with their delivered wholesaler.
4.2.4 Starting the consumer dialogue
As previously highlighted, commissioning a consumer campaign during the earliest days of the brand development might have been exciting and engaging, but it would have been wrong from a strategic perspective and would have only served to build the energy category – rather than specifically uplift Boost sales. 12 months into the trade campaign we saw a strong uplift in trade distribution levels which prompted us to investigate data from customers, to generate insight into where the brand was stocked at retail and where it wasn’t. In other words - where could consumers find it.
The result of this analysis was an understanding that Boost distribution had increased significantly in a number of regional strongholds, and as such a consumer dialogue in those regions was now worthwhile and appropriate.
Recommended action:
Our original analysis of the competitive landscape during Discovery indicated that we were operating in a highly congested, highly competitive marketplace with many brands (large and small) all jostling for share of consumer attention. We knew from the outset that Boost didn’t have the huge budgets of some of its multinational competitors, nor did it have the brand awareness and affinity that industry incumbents like Red Bull had established over many years. What Boost did have was solid customer loyalty, an entrepreneurial spirit and a strong brand proposition.
We needed to out-think our competition (rather than out-spend them). We needed to create a campaign that would communicate our brand personality and engage trade and consumer audiences alike by being smart, challenging and true to the brand proposition.
The subsequent development of the ‘Boost. It’s a no brainer’ campaign was driven by the penetrating insight that Boost is a drink for a savvy consumer (or customer) that knows their own mind, celebrates true value and is willing to try something different. The cheeky and humorous tone of voice has been applied to help the brand stand out from the many other brands that compete on very similar platforms.
In order to ensure our budgets were used effectively we initially selected a specific target audience that would have a strong resonance with the Boost brand proposition, and one that could be easily defined and targeted from a media perspective. This allowed us to focus our in-market activity centrally and surround our target audience for the most impact.
The national trade campaign went live in February 2010 with targeted retail communications focussed on driving awareness and demand. The regional consumer campaign then went live in the Leeds area in April 2010 with street sampling, 48 sheet outdoor advertising and social networking activity. The consumer campaign will rollout to eight subsequent heartland cities over the rest of 2010.
4.2.5 Doing a few things well
At the outset, we highlighted the numerous opportunities that were open to Boost and its future direction, including new product development, new channels and international markets. We knew that to succeed, Boost needed to focus on a small number of key initiatives that they could commit to delivering.
Recommended action:
Propaganda and Boost worked collectively to write a brand-led business plan that identified a realistic number of primary strategic pillars and subsequent implementation programmes. Importantly, the other opportunities have not been overlooked; they are reviewed and updated quarterly at strategic review sessions to ensure Boost remains agile and best positioned to deliver significant and continuous growth throughout 2010 and beyond.
4.4 Scope/scale of consulting intervention
The initial Discovery programme team was led by a senior Planning Director, and the ongoing relationship support consists of team members from the strategic planning, client services, creative, design and PR teams within Propaganda.
5. Success factors and challenges
The success of the strategy can be gauged by both the business and brand transformation supported by the following data:
• Sales uplift value yoy + 26.1%
• Sales uplift volume (core range) yoy + 17.3%
• Market share - impulse (volume) 8.3% (source: Nielsen ScanTrack)
• Projected turnover for 2010 is +26.2% versus prior year (significantly outstripping segment growth)
• Successful launch and rollout of two new SKUs driven by trade and consumer demand (Energy Cola and Stimulation Shots)
• First ever direct-to-retailer communications to drive penetration and distribution in heartland territories
• First ever investment in student-focussed, consumer brand campaign in heartland territories
• Ongoing investment into consumer insight programme to inform and direct innovation and new product development
6. The client/consultant relationship
A core, senior team at Propaganda continues to engage with Boost as their strategic and creative brand advisors in relation to their entire brand strategy and implementation across trade, retail and consumer audiences.
As Boost moves over the crossroads and into the next phase of its journey, the Propaganda team continues to work with the client towards a common goal. We continue to immerse ourselves within every aspect of the business strategy,ambitions and target audiences, which is particularly important in such a rapidly developing market segment.
“When I first came to Propaganda, I wasn’t sure which opportunities to attack first. Over the past 18 months, we have collectively gained a new and deeper understanding of our sector and business that gives me real confidence that 2010 and beyond will far outstrip the performance of previous years. We are clearer than ever about our brand difference and future direction”
Simon Gray, Managing Director Boost Drinks
