1 Ella’s Kitchen

Forget your product: start selling solutions

to create genuine relationships andincrease revenue

Marketing Society Brave Awards 2019Brand: Ella’s KitchenCategory: Relationship Marketing

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This paper tells how baby food brand Ella’s Kitchen overcame a declining market full of ‘me too’ imitators, by shifting focus from retail to relationships; ripping up the rule book and focusing on serving parents, rather than selling to them.

Ella’s Kitchen rose to become no.1 brand in just seven years. However, as time went on, the brand faced serious challenges to its growth; from copycat competitors to declining category sales and maxed-out distribution. Yet despite all this, new owners Hain Celestial expected Ella’s to deliver 10% growth annually.

10% annual sales value growth for 3 years, from £46m (2014) to £51m/ £56m/ £63m.

Once a trailblazing innovator, Ella’s was in danger of becoming just another brand in the supermarket.

We had to find a way to recapture Ella’s pioneering spirit - this time using marketing to forge a new kind of relationship with consumers.

We found the answer not in product or packaging, but in understanding the importance of weaning. We would stop selling and start serving.

Ella’s Kitchen’s achievements had been so great that rival brands had imitated its style and recipes. Its example also inspired parents to make their own ‘kitchen-made’ meals, leading to sales of shop-bought meals falling by 14% (2012-2015) – something Ella’s couldn’t be seen to discourage. And Ella’s marketing budget was frozen at £345k – a tenth of rival brands’ budgets.

Management summary

Background

Objective

Scale of task

Ella’s Kitchen

Campaign We put in place an online weaning service to give Ella’s a pivotal role in parents’ lives at this stressful time.

Insight

With just £345,000pa, Ella’s Kitchen’s weaning servicerecruited 40% of all new parents. 1.1m babies! It grewrevenue by £14.6m (+28.3%) against a target of £10.75m,and delivered an astounding £12 for every £1 invested.

Results

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The baby food market was once dominated by two global mega-brands: Heinz and Cow & Gate. They sold processed food, served up in glass jars with pastel-coloured labels.

For seven years Ella’s Kitchen grew spectacularly, gaining ever-more distribution and sales until becoming number one brand in 2012. In 2013, Ella’s Kitchen’s success drew the attention of Hain Celestial, who acquired the brand into their portfolio in the expectation of continued double-digit growth. But it quickly became clear that things had changed, and that growth was by no means guaranteed.

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Seven years of

spectacular success

Ella’s Kitchen

Ella’s innovated

with their brightly

coloured pouches

In 2007, Ella’s Kitchen came on the scene and broke all the rules.• Home-style recipes, inspired by founder Paul

Lindley, made in his kitchen for his own children.• Organic ingredients.• Brightly-coloured ‘squishable’ pouches.• Kid-inspired naming, design, tone of voice

and typefaces

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Ella’s Kitchen had grown through a combination of product, distribution and pricing.

But the category was declining. (Fig 1)

And was increasingly flooded with me-too competitors, meaning Ella’s once USP’s were fast becoming category norms.

Meanwhile, Ella’s rapid distribution gains in its early years meant that by 2015, there was little distribution left to gain. (Fig 2)

The writing was on the wall and ‘business as usual’ wasn’t going to achieve the 10% YoY growth required.

The only way is down?

Fig 1: Size of the UK baby food market. Source: Nielsen

Fig 2: Weighted distribution for Ella’s Kitchen. Source: IRI

We needed to increase penetration,

getting more parents to buy

Ella’s Kitchen more often.

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Between 2013-2015, Havas were brought onboard and we adopted a typical FMCG approach, promoting NPD and telling parents why the products were perfect for their little ones.

But limited media budgets typically 10% the size of our big competitors and aggressive competitor activity meant we weren’t cutting through. We were never going to get enough eyes on our comms to stand out and make a significant impact on business growth.

We needed to take a different approach.

With parents only in market for 18 months, they’re a constantly refreshing audience. Yet we were spending all our time and money on content creation. Our focus was in the wrong place and we realised we needed to look, instead, at what goes on in our audience’s lives in that crucial 18-month lifestage.

We looked at the needs of our audiences, and how they related to the products and brands created to help them on their journey. And we spotted something very interesting indeed: weaning. It’s an incredibly stressful time for parents, throwing up so many insecurities and questions.

Yet no brand was helping parents navigate this period. They were too focused on selling their new product ranges.

At a time when consumers were expecting more and more from brands, we saw an opportunity to forge a deeper and genuinely useful relationship with them.

Our first attempt fell short

Our moment of realisation

Our big insight

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We needed to completely rethink our approach. Instead of just thinking about products, we needed to think relationships first. Counterintuitively, we would stop selling and start connecting.

Instead of NPD product launches and constant content creation, we would put all our eggs into a ‘service’ basket, to help parents through their weaning journey. To make this new approach work, we would need to achieve at least 5 things, all at once: (Fig 3)

And we’d need to do it all with just 10% of the budgets available to our rivals. But would parents accept this level of service from a brand when it came to the health and wellbeing of their child?

A brave lesson

for marketers

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Fig 3. Ella’s Kitchen comms model

We needed a way to test our theory. And so… We created a pop-up ‘Weaning Restaurant’, where little ones could enjoy good food, & parents could gain valuable tips from experts.

Ella’s were positioned as the experts in weaning and parents loved it! Asda even asked Ella’s to create a number of weaning restaurants across their stores. We’d shown we could lead the way in becoming a true partner to parents, rather than selling endless products to them. But our budgets meant we couldn’t afford to build a national chain of restaurants. So instead we created…

Ella’s Kitchen

Weaning Restaurant

Ella’s Kitchen

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A multifaceted online service, each facet designed to recruit parents where they already were, improve their weaning experience, build a relationship with them throughout their weaning journey, and turn them into advocates of the brand.

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The Ella’s Kitchen

online weaning programme

Ella’s Kitchen

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How it workedWe created a partnership with BabyCentre. We leveraged influencers to talk to them about what Ella’s could provide. And we used highly targeted digital and social comms to reach parents as they were about to reach weaning. Interested parents could sign up to ‘Become a friend of Ella’s Kitchen.’ From then on we could give them fun, inspirational and useful content, specifically targeted to their child’s age.

Each new ‘Friend’ received a welcome pack, including a weaning journey wall-chart, complete with bright colourful kid-friendly stickers. We no longer needed to create rafts of new content, but instead focused on a smart system that provided the right content when parents needed it most.

A programme structured

around children’s needs,

not a marketing calendar.

Providing snackable

content and inspiration

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Photo shared from parents, enjoying their welcome packs

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A series of 10 targeted emails guided them through their journey. To support this, we packed our content into a new ‘Weeny Weaning’ YouTube channel. This content featured ideas from other parents, tips from our expert nutritionist, influencer challenges and campaigns that we were passionate about.

Plus, once they were engaging with us, our content led them back to our social channels, the perfect opportunity to inspire them further, build brand love and create advocacy.

It was a strategy designed both to recruit parents, foster advocacy and keep them with Ella’s Kitchen for longer, building their confidence in - and love for - the brand.

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Email sent to parents based on their stage in the weaning journey.

Ella’s Kitchen social posts

Weeny Weaning YouTube channel

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With an investment of just £345,000pa, and in the face of rivals spending ten times more, the Ella’s Kitchen’s weaning service both built and strengthened Ella’s relationships with parents, and led to increased value sales.

Results

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The service recruited an astonishing

40% of all new parents. Meaning 1.1m

babies have grown up with Ella’s

between 2015-17.

And it delivered an astounding

£12 for every £1 invested.

More than this, it grew revenue by £14.6m

between 2015-2017 (+ 28.3%),

against a target of £10.75m.

Ella’s Kitchen Comms Model

Our service approach

delivered against

each of our objectives.

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• Our recruitment and engagement channels reach 4.3m parents every month

• 40% of ALL UK parents entering weaning are recruited into Ella’s eCRM programme. (Fig 4)

• That’s 14k new parents every month, with 310k parents on their weaning journey with us at any one time.

• Without using TV, we’ve significantly increased brand awareness (Fig 5)

• We’ve also significantly increased consideration, proving we’re driving relevance as well as being top of mind. (Fig 6)

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Fig 4. 40% of parents are recruited, equaling 170k per year

Fig 5. Awareness levels of Ella’s Kitchen.

IPSOS Brand Health Check 2017.Fig 6. Consideration scores.

IPSOS Brand Health Check 2017.

Step 1

We found + recruited

the right parents

• Our weaning content became a permanent fixture in parent’s homes; charts adorned their fridges, stickers marked their child’s progress: with just one mailer we got to the heart of the home. (Fig 7)

Step 2

We fostered

brand love

Fig 7. Weaning charts in parent’s homes

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Fig 8. Letters of thanks from parents Fig 9. OR and CTR for Ella’s Weaning Emails. Google Analytics

Fig 10. Number of fan posts on Ella’s Kitchen Facebook Page. Facebook Insights.

Fig 11. Brand desire within the baby food category. IPSOS Brand Health Check 2016

• We regularly receive letters from parents (and beautiful drawings from their little ones!) telling us how much they appreciate the brand. (Fig 8)

• Parents engaged with the whole of our eCRM programme, with email open rates at or above 20% throughout the programme, and 20.42% average click-through rates, exceeding industry standards by 700%. (Fig 9)

• Ella’s social channels now enjoy the highest levels of engagement in the category (Fig 10)

• In 2016 Ella’s Kitchen became the no 1 desired baby food brand for the first time, climbing 2.3 points from 2015. (Fig 11)

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Step 3

We encouraged positive word

of mouth + recommendation

• Parents have become a media channel for us in their own right. Our content and assets are regularly shared on social, with parents happily posting photos of their kids enjoying Ella’s Kitchen.

• Despite growing, we’ve maintained our position as most recommended brand: we’ve not compromised on brand love to reach our growth targets. (Fig 13)

Fig 12. Photos shared by friends of Ella’s Kitchen

Fig 13. Recommendation of Ella’s Kitchen. IPSOS Brand Health Check 2017

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Step 4

We increased penetration

• Stated usage of Ella’s Kitchen products has steadily increased since launch of the service, with 80% of parents using Ella’s Kitchen products. Increased awareness has driven increased spend. (Fig 14)

• Penetration has increased 10% by 3 ppts in just 2 years. (Fig 15)

• We are seeing parents buying Ella’s more often - Daily usage +63%, and monthly usage +27%. This more frequent purchase is being driven predominantly by second time mums, showing the importance of recruiting first time mums and encouraging them to come back to the brand second time round. (Fig 16)

Fig 14. Number of parents who have used Ella’s Kitchen. IPSOS Brand Health Check 2017

Fig 15. Penetration of Ella’s Kitchen. IRI.

Fig 17. Revenue Uplift. IRI.

Fig 16. Frequency of usage. IPSOS Brand Health Check 2017

Step 5

We grew sales

• Rate of growth has increased with a 42% revenue growth in 2017. Despite the maturity of our brand, the declining market and the competitive landscape we smashed the 10% growth target. (Fig 17)

Penetration increased by 3 ppts (10%) in just 2 years

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• This growth was driven by early weaning products. We also saw that our market share for stage 1 weaning products increased significantly faster than Ella’s total market share. As a focus of our programme, this is a strong indicator that our weaning programme has driven sales. (Fig 18). We also are seeing this gap in growth continue to increase, showing the continued and long term impact the programme is having on sales of Ella’s core range.

• We proved that marketing was the primary driver of growth. At its peak, we saw our brand activity drive over £500k more revenue than the same time period in the previous year. To understand where any revenue increase has come from, Ella’s Kitchen regularly undertake analysis to isolate the key drivers of growth. (Fig 19). Reviewing this analysis over time allows patterns to emerge. We can clearly see the impact of distribution and price on growth were both declining whilst growth from ‘other’ spiked just after our programme launched. For the first time in the company’s history, growth was driven by brand rather than distribution or price.

• Increased revenue was achieved hand in hand with increased profitability of 31%. 2016 saw the highest profitability figures for the business to date. (Fig 20)

• Generating an ROI of 12:1. Our shift in approach from push to pull, enabled us to achieve an incredibly high ROMI. Taking into account our increased revenue from 2015 to 2017 of £14.5m, we can strip other potential growth factors such as distribution, price, promotions, number of babies in the market and we are left with incremental revenue of £12.6m.

Fig 18. Market share of Ella’s Kitchen total range vs core range. IRI.

Fig 19. Amount of growth driven by brand comms. IRI.

Fig 20. Profit figures for Ella’s Kitchen. IRI.

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Paul Lindley, the founder of Ella’s Kitchen once told us that Ella’s employees were his No.1 priority, because “if you ingrain the culture and values into them, it will seep out into the world”. The programme was/is loved by everyone at Ella’s Kitchen and has continued the feeling of marketing-leading innovation within the company.

In a competitive landscape of FMCG brands, Ella’s Kitchen’s Weaning Programme has shown that understanding and serving rather than selling to your consumers can drive greater awareness, build stronger relationships and establish long term connections in a way that traditional reach campaigns cannot (without significant investment).

Finally, the programme reinvigorated a company nervous about what the future held.

What we’ve learnt

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Through this process, we adopted an agile approach that required bravery and commitment from both agency and client. This was achieved through clear steps:

The power of brave relationship marketing has never been stronger and Ella’s proves that it can be transformational.

1.2.3.4.5.6.

Map the category conventions to define clear white space for your business

Develop a powerful insight that addresses a real consumer need

Understand how your brand can answer this consumer need in a way that is genuine to the business.

Find a way to test your theory in a contained, yet potent way.

Refine and roll out your strategy

Continue to test and learn to optimise your approach