2 What was the problem/opportunity faced by the client?
Seabrook Crisps is a UK manufacturer of potato crisps. Established in 1945 by Mr C Brook, the business remains within the Brook family over 60 years on. In 2006 Ken Brook-Chrispin took over the reigns of the company with ambitions to awaken a sleeping giant. But the entrepreneur realised that he and his management team had to overcome a number of fundamental challenges:
• How to drive business growth from a category that was in decline, dominated by one brand with a huge marketing budget, an aggressive promotion policy and unrelenting NPD programme.
• How to stay true to founding values, yet create a new way of doing business with a dynamic trade audience, who demanded national brands, with national awareness, innovations and trade & consumer support.
• The business had no structured approach to sales & marketing, no regular buyer dialogue, key account strategy, or formal NPD programme.
• How to address the key category drivers - the health & obesity debate and the simultaneous growth of premium / indulgence and sharing.
The team realised it must take action and deliver a step change; the business had to break its long standing position of ‘no customer / consumer engagement’. It needed to deliver a joined-up sales and marketing strategy to both its trade and end consumer audiences, whilst at the same time delivering a major people, process, operational and cultural re-engineering programme, to establish business practice to support growth ambitions.
3 Brief project background
Seabrook Crisps approached Propaganda for professional support to address the identified challenges based on a third party recommendation of our ‘knowledge before assumption' approach. Our recommendation was to undertake a Discovery programme – a comprehensive audit to understand what customers (trade and consumers) wanted, what they thought of Seabrook and what made Seabrook different. This insight would be used to build a business and marketing strategy capable of delivering sales growth, despite the challenging competitive forces.
4 Consulting activity
4.1 Knowledge before assumption
The 12-week programme included top team workshops, one-to-one interviews with Seabrook directors and employees and trade buyers (multiple/wholesale), focus groups with crisp consumers (brand advocates and non-users), trade media and desk research to identify market trends and challenges. The result was a true 360° audit of the Seabrook brand and its category challenges and opportunities.
4.2 Issue resolution
The process identified the following key internal and external issues, for which, in conjunction with the Seabrook board, a strategy has been developed and implemented:
4.2.1 A forum for change
Research with the top team identified fundamental insight: there was no ongoing, formal platform for the business and its senior management team to debate or address business strategy. As a family-run business, no importance had been placed on formal, regular board meetings.
Recommended action:
Develop and implement a robust business plan driven by a monthly board meeting working to a set agenda, to address the challenges relating to people, process and business strategy. Julian Kynaston (Chairman, Propaganda) was appointed as a non-executive director tasked with chairing and directing the meeting and providing an objective, balanced viewpoint.
In addition, the senior management team were engaged and tasked with owning their own departmental development plans and reporting to the board meeting with progress updates. Whilst seemingly simple, this forum has been fundamental to transforming business performance.
4.2.2 A team to deliver change
The complexity and dynamics of the crisp category has changed dramatically in the last decade. Insight from both the trade and top team research identified that a change in team dynamic and skill set was required to take the business to the next level. Whilst retaining ‘family values’ Seabrook had to change the way it approached business and the people that drove the business.
Recommended action:
The board agreed to make new senior hires, appointing people with the necessary commercial and category skills to take the business forward. Subsequently both the board and management teams have undergone a radical overhaul in recent times. The most significant appointments have been a new Managing Director (with both FMCG and brand (Disney®) experience) and Commercial Director, jointly tasked with providing the commercial strategy, focus and drive.
In addition, there has been a complete change in the make-up of the sales team, which now comprises National Account Managers. These specialist sales professionals with retail multiple, licensed and wholesale backgrounds are adept at operating to a sales strategy and owning and driving key account plans.
The manufacturing side of the business has also been bolstered with the appointment of operations, factory, performance improvement and purchasing specialists, all with blue-chip experience within the food sector, tasked with driving manufacturing efficiency.
4.2.3 A change in trade dialogue
The research delivered a clear understanding of what buyers want from a trading partnership and more importantly, provided a road map for change. Seabrook was identified as being weak in the following areas:
• Understanding of buyers' business and commercial drivers
• Regular dialogue, business planning and account reviews
• A proactive approach and willingness to ‘trade’ to deliver mutual benefit
The core needs were identified as follows:
• Products that deliver good profit margins and achieve their sell-out targets (driven by consumer awareness of the brand and improved store footfall.)
• Promotions to stimulate sell-through
• NPD to support category growth
• Product improvements to address the health debate
• Win-Win relationships
Recommended action:
To resolve the identified issues and deliver against the needs of trade buyers, the sales and marketing team (marketing outsourced to Propaganda) were tasked with delivering a joined-up sales and marketing programme, which included:
• The first board agreed strategic sales plan, with individual plans for all key accounts
• A contact programme that ensured regular buyer dialogue and quarterly meetings
• A trade promotional calendar to support organic growth of existing and new SKUs
• Trade product advertising and PR
• Trade sponsorship to create awareness in key channels
• Product literature, buyer presentations, sampling kits and POS material
4.2.4 A change in consumer dialogue
Seabrook has a loyal northern heartland and a core audience consisting of 35 year-old+ consumers. The identified challenge was to protect and leverage this loyalty, whilst engaging with a younger audience (18-30 year-olds) and to expose the brand to a wider audience in the hinterland to drive growth.
Recommended action:
Implement a consumer marketing programme targeting existing and potential consumers, north and south, to create awareness and interest in the brand’s differentiated proposition. This ‘pull’ strategy linked to the ‘push’ strategy, delivered through in-store promotions and POS. The programme included:
• Consumer PR – delivering over £2m of coverage
• A TV campaign exposing the brand to over 30m consumers
• An online viral campaign to reach a younger audience, 3m page impressions
• A product placement campaign on TV, delivering brand sightings to 3.4m people and a media value of £350,000
• Seabrook’s first ever website delivering an online brand experience - winning a national award for best B2C website
4.2.5 A product range aligned to consumer needs
Discovery highlighted that concerns over healthy eating (reduction of fat and salt), artificial ingredient reduction (MSG and gluten) and ingredient traceability dominated the category.
Recommended action:
Deliver a category first to gain competitive advantage – an ingredient review, which successfully delivered the UK’s largest range of everyday, 100% clean label crisps (no MSG/GM). In addition to this the fat content for all flavours was reduced below levels of other leading brands. (Work is currently underway to reduce the salt content.)
4.2.6 A look that reflects our positioning
Despite the fact that Seabrook crisps are a product of superior quality, using only the finest ingredients (pioneering the use of sunflower oil and sea salt – 20 years ahead of the competition) research highlighted that the packaging looked like own label.
Recommended action:
Deliver improved shelf impact and sales through a packaging redesign, whilst remaining recognisable to loyal customers. The brief was to deliver a premium look that communicated Seabrook's values and unique ‘clean label' credentials, incorporating the widely accepted GDA dial, to aid consumer choice.
4.2.7 A new product range to meet changing consumer tastes
Research highlighted that whilst the crisp category is at best flat, there are exceptions. Growth has come from indulgent, gourmet and ‘alternative flavoured’ products, which in turn have capitalised on the growth in the ‘sharing’ occasion.
Recommended action:
Introduce a new range to support the Seabrook tradition of quality crisps full of flavour - a range that redefines the concept of hot & spicy. The key NPD drivers being:
• To capitalise on a growing niche
• To encourage the trade to re-appraise the brand (this would be Seabrook’s first NPD launch)
• To launch a premium product, delivering increased margins for both Seabrook and its customers
• To introduce unique, authentic flavours that appeal to today’s modern tastes in grab and sharing bags
As a result, Seabrook Hot & Spicy was researched, consumer validated and launched to the multiple and licensed trade channels.
4.3 Timescales
Implementation began in June 2007, concluding in September 2008. Propaganda continues to support, develop and implement Seabrook’s business and strategic marketing plans.
4.4 Scope/scale of consulting intervention
Discovery was led by a head consultant supported by two senior consultants, one strategic planner and two creative teams.
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 yoy c + 15%
• April - October 2008 ex-factory sales are + 40% volume
• Projected turnover for the next 12 months is £20.5m, +37% versus prior year
• SKU build across all key multiples (ASDA + 300% in the last 6 months.)
• Customer acquisition - 50+ new accounts
• TNS World Panel data (52we September 08) highlights how Seabrook has out performed the category
• Seabrook growth + 18% v + 8% category growth
• Performance in the hinterland has been even stronger; midlands (+ 18%), London (+ 36%) and south (+ 52%)
• A £4m production investment programme is in place to support 2009 growth
• Research to assess the effectivenessof the TV campaign shows post campaign awareness has increased 26% nationally and total awareness has increased from 35% to 44%, largely driven by 18-24s (key brand audience)
• Seabrook now has a strategy to deliver against the key category drivers of health, premiumisation, ingredient provenance and adventurous flavours
6. The client/consultant relationship
Julian Kynaston continues to sit on the board and Propaganda act as
Seabrook’s outsourced marketing department, with a representative sitting on the management board. Both parties share a common vision – for Seabrook to become the second largest crisp brand in the everyday sector; a genuine challenger to Walkers.
“The insight and direction from the 360° audit gave us the courage to make the step change required, from the way we engaged both the trade and our consumers, to the way we policed our business strategy. Moreover, the implementation of regular, formal board meetings chaired and evolved over time by Julian has been fundamental to delivering our business growth.”
Ken Brook-Chrispin
CEO & Chairman, Seabrook Crisps
