Will Ockenden: 0:04

Hello everyone, welcome back to Embracing Marketing Mistakes. We've got a slightly different one today, haven't we, chris? This is a recent food and beverage webinar that we delivered to senior marketers in the sector, and food and beverage is one of those sectors we're really good at, to be quite honest. We've got a ton of clients in it. We love doing this kind of work. We know the sector really well and we thought we'd kind of really dive into some of the nuances of what's happening in the sector, particularly the challenge of how brands can actually break through and you know, and secure listings and keep listings actually, because it's such a competitive sector, isn't it?

Chris Norton: 0:40

yeah, it's competitive and we work with multiple different brands and we know how difficult it is to get multiple different NPD and various SKUs listed. Some people have got one or two SKUs listed, some people get several and then they lose a load. This podcast is all about how to get your products listed, how to build on that listing and how to show the malts and the other places that you want to get your products listed, that you are supporting the brand, and there is a big sort of wave of enthusiasm behind it we know a lot of you listen to these podcasts audio only.

Will Ockenden: 1:14

If you do want to see chris and i's beautiful faces, do head to youtube. Just search for embracing marketing mistakes and you can actually see a full video of us delivering the podcast and also some really helpful slides and videos.

Chris Norton: 1:25

And it's packed with videos from all the other podcasts too, so enjoy. So we're calling this Cutting Through in Food and Beverage. It's a prohibition masterclass. So what you're going to get from today's session is the leading marketing and comms advice from food and beverage sector specialists, not just from me and william.

Chris Norton: 1:48

Today we've also got some insight from a couple of journalists. Well, a journalist, a couple of journalists and, um, a senior buyer from one of the moults, who shall remain nameless, but is from one of the top four moults um, in some inspiration on what the best in class are currently doing, because, at the end end of the day, you're all working in your own silos. We get that what are the other guys doing to get listed? How do they get listed? There's multiple questions you're asking yourself with that, and I know your account managers were working hard to do that. And then we've got, as I said, some insight from industry experts not just us, because we've got clients in these two sectors and there's multiple categories in this sector, and so we've also spoken to some of the journalists that we deal with regularly, haven't we?

Will Ockenden: 2:28

well, yeah, absolutely so. Um, we'll come on to that and and that's why it's a little bit different we yeah, we wanted to get some different perspectives on it. So, rather than, um, you just hearing from us, we thought we'd actually kind of go out to some of our um media friends and actually kind of get their view on what it takes to cut through when it comes to the trade press in particular. So we spoke with Tristan O'Hara, who is an editor at Pub and Bar, and James Beeson, who I'm sure you're familiar with, who is the drinks editor at the Grocer, and they've actually provided us some really valuable insight into what it takes to cut through, what makes a story, the type of mistakes they see day in, day out, and how to avoid them. So we'll come on to that in a moment.

Chris Norton: 3:07

Yeah, as Will says, obviously this podcast is called Embracing Marketing Mistakes, but we also run this little PR agency called Prohibition, and at Prohibition we specialize in food and beverage, which is why we've done a sector-specific event and a sector-specific podcast. We work from everyone, from Saint Pierre, the bakery products that you'll see everywhere in every supermarket. Basically We've worked with Primula Cheese for about five or six years now, helping them get various products listed. And yeah, we've worked with Bloom Gin. We've worked with Franklin Sons, we've worked with Hooch, we've worked with VK, we've worked with Fentimans. We've worked with Hooch, we've worked with VK. We've worked with Fentimans. We've worked with C4 Energy. We've got a couple of case studies in here as well, which, so I won't labour the point but also we've worked with Black Sheep Brewery and various other drinks and cocktail brands as well.

Chris Norton: 3:57

So the point is, I think it is a tougher market than it's ever been before. There's so much out there that you're hearing about it being a tough market. Um, there's so so much out there that you're hearing about it being a tough market. Um, uk food businesses highlight challenges around labeling. So the recyclability of products is a big issue. Um, shrinkflation has been everywhere from. You know your cadbury's bars getting smaller and smaller and people are noticing that. I saw I saw some posts recently about quality street and it showed the various boxes going down the years and it's like that is literally shrinkflation in front of your eyes. Kendall Jenner redefines brand leadership with 818 tequila. So the point here is that celebrities are bringing out more and more products. I don't know if that's just a really recent thing Will, but I feel like there's celebrity products left, right and center. I particularly enjoy Rickage of Faces' I don't really give a shit ads, don't you or he?

Will Ockenden: 4:51

does his ads that I just think nobody else can get away with what he does. Yeah, I mean certainly in in the in the drink sector. It's massive, isn't it? You've got um. You've got snoop dogg releasing his cali uh, cali wine. You've got um gary barlow rose, you've got kylie minogue rose, and, and the point is, these celebrities are absolutely taking market share and you know, they've got huge brand awareness, um, they've got huge spend and for um brands. Without those celebrity um ambassadors, it's, it's tough, it's tough to, it's tough to cut through particularly if we're against kendall jenner or kylie minogue's rose.

Chris Norton: 5:24

I haven't even spotted that I like a rose. Um, uh, ultra processed food linked to 32 harmful effects to health. So, yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot in the media about processed foods and what's ultra processed and actually you see various health specialists arguing over what's processed and what isn't processed and you should eat whole foods a big issue. And then the final point we've got here is Waitrose to clear shelf space for more alcohol-free products. So we're thinking, yeah, I mean alcohol-free products Started with Lucky Saint in the beer sector, but there's so many new ones.

Chris Norton: 5:57

Look at Heineken's new 0% range. There is so much enthusiasm for alcohol-free and it's been a big big thing in the last couple of years alcohol-free. And yeah, like I say, Lucky Saints started the way. Npd is reaching saturation point. New product development has gone crazy. And when we say that, just to give you an inkling on the figures 18,000 new products are launched in the UK across three years. That's 16 a day. Every single day, 16 new products are launched and at the same time, up to 80% of the new grocery products actually fail. So 80% of those 16 a day fail. And size is by no means a guarantee of success. So what we mean by that is.

Chris Norton: 6:42

In March, Coca-Cola discontinued its Innocent Dairy-Free range, so Innocent launched a you'll be able to see it if you can see the visuals but hazelnut and dairy-free 100% plant-based. It was originally launched in 2018. It failed to gain traction with consumers and they reported poor sales performance, despite being in a growing category. So plant-based is great, but yeah, there's been a bit of a struggle. So, even with the weight of Coca-Cola's strength behind the Innocent brand, now even a 100% plant-based product couldn't work for them, and I think we've seen quite a lot with plant-based, because everyone's went in hard with vegan and plant-based. Is this a bit of a correction to the market or is it just that some products aren't as good will? What do you reckon?

Will Ockenden: 7:27

well my view on the coca-cola issue. Um, I would assume a lot of um vegans and those people who follow plant-based diets are of an ethical mindset. Coca-cola, one of the? Um, the ultimate kind of international corporate which probably has some fairly unscrupulous ethics, launching a dairy-free product. It feels like a bit of a disconnect to me. So if you're a vegan, I think probably purchasing a Coca-Cola product isn't top of your list.

Chris Norton: 7:59

Well, I don't know if that's a bit of a jump. I don't know if you're a vegan or you're into your plant-based drinks, and then you walk in and go, oh Coca-Cola, make innocent, now I'm not going to buy that. I don't know if that's a bit of a jump, but maybe I think the point here is that, even with their weight of marketing behind new products, they still don't succeed. And another example of that that we've got is that Burger King launched something in 2013 called Satisfries Big taste, less fat. And who remembers? These is what we've put here because, yeah, they launched in 2013 and by 2014 they were gone.

Chris Norton: 8:33

The idea was the fries were slightly bigger, slightly healthier, but also, weirdly, slightly more expensive, and Burger King felt that the strategy would work to have more healthy fries, people would pay more money. And then I've seen some arguments online between when people did like comparisons and they actually had more calories and there's various things than McDonald's and things like that. So it was actually not that healthy anyway and the product just didn't work. So, yeah, doesn't matter how big a product you've got, it needs to be founded on good knowledge and good insight. But it's not all doom and gloom. Confidence is on the up from consumers. So we've seen that UK consumer confidence has risen to its highest level since 2021. In Q2 2024, it was up 10%, which is amazing. That's according to Deloitte's UK consumer tracker, and food and beverage inflation is apparently going down which is good.

Will Ockenden: 9:27

So the Bank of England are probably going to cut rates a couple of times by the end of year as well, which ultimately will give consumers a bit more money, because this has been a real problem, hasn't it? I mean, food and beverage inflation, I think, outstripped most other types of inflation, didn't it, and it was kind of running at about 12 to 14% at one point, and it meant just everything got a lot more expensive, and, to be honest, I'm not really seeing prices come down that much, certainly not in supermarkets. There's typically a bit of a lag on these things, but ultimately this has, over the last 18 months, added real pressure. Consumers are spending less, and then all the other challenges that you mentioned. But, yeah, things are hopefully changing for the better.

Chris Norton: 10:12

And budgets are increasing, so this is a positive. Almost 25% of overall marketing budgets have increased and we've got a graphic that looks at various bits which I'll come on to in a minute. But 41% of UK businesses plan to increase marketing budgets in the financial year 2025. So if that's you great, I mean that's nearly half of all UK businesses are planning to increase marketing budgets in the financial year 2025. So if that's you great, I mean that's nearly half of all UK businesses are planning to increase marketing budgets. And the key things that look like they're going to be growing is events are up by 23.1%, direct marketing's up by 7%, sales promotions are almost up by 5% and woo-hoo PR's almost up by nearly 1%. So the budgets are going to go up a bit. I hope that's includes our clients will I know, but what?

Will Ockenden: 10:49

what's going down then?

Chris Norton: 10:50

so we've got um main media advertising, so traditional media advertising and other going down you can't say that about main media advertising, though, even though that this is from according to marketing week and ip bellwether trust. If you say that media advertising is going down, we'll get castigated for saying that social media is the big thing.

Will Ockenden: 11:09

From all the media buyers.

Chris Norton: 11:10

Yeah, yeah, exactly, because media, yeah, but TV is still. You know, on the last podcast we interviewed Matt Thomas from the head of Lexus Marketing and he told us that TV is still the number one driver of his brand in automotive, which is great for the automotive sector, but it looks like in the food and beverage main media advertising is slightly down. There's also a section on other, but most things look like they're on the up, don't they? And then savvy marketing still cuts through Clever campaigns. If you listen to the podcast regularly, you know this is what we're all about. We love a good stunt, we love a good campaign that stop being boring, do something a little bit different. So Surreal was a serial startup that shook up the serial category with fresh new ideas and a fresh approach slightly different to before. It got genuine word of mouth thanks to risky campaign creative across out of home social media and pr. And, yeah, it can be a bit bit marmite, but some of what it did was really great because it had a minimal budget, basically, and it's now listed in major malts nationwide plus direct, direct to consumer. And it was the fastest growing cereal brand in the uk is up by year on year nearly 500, which is phenomenal success, and just some of the examples that they've got.

Chris Norton: 12:27

So, yeah, the MD Kit did an advert which went on out of home and it says this Hi Dad, remember how I quit my job to start that stupid cereal company? Well, we just launched Insane Sprees. Who's the disappointment now? Kit PS. Can I still borrow a tenner, which is quite clever? The disappointment now, kit ps. Can I still borrow a tenner, which is quite clever? Um, they also did some other stuff which was which was brilliant. Which was the, the clever marketing that they did do? They were using famous celebrity names. So serena williams, for instance. They found somebody called serena williams who said something positive about their cereal brand and then they put serena williams says this, and they were using like famous celebrities, but they weren't famous celebrities, they're just using the celebrity name. So nobody could say your breach of copyright, which is really clever strategy, isn't it?

Will Ockenden: 13:11

and low cost. Yeah, yeah, they. They've been doing some really good stuff and it's really been driving word of mouth. I mean, I think I heard about this serial through a conversation or through a social post before I actually saw those ads and, um, it just shows the power of word of mouth and actually we're going to talk about that later on in terms of getting on the radar of buyers. Often it is that kind of word of mouth and that organic piece that drives that initial interest, and we'll talk about the importance of that in a minute.

Chris Norton: 14:13

Yeah, I've no idea how nice the cereal is. I've never tried it. No, I've got no idea. So how do we get it right? Then is the question we're all asking Influencing buyers.

Chris Norton: 14:22

Don't underestimate the power of social is our first tip. So don't underestimate the power of social to influence buyers. So this is a quote from one of the senior drinks buyers at one of the multiples and they've said so that's quite clear. They're looking for somebody that's backing the product, that's doing something a bit different, that's unique, and also, you know, that is just showing some sort of encouragement behind a brand rather than just asking for a listing Landing in malts then. So we've put the first tip. The second tip is build an engaged community. So showcase a loyal social media following to demonstrate demand and interest before your product even hits the shelves. So you've got to show that there is a loyal following out there.

Chris Norton: 15:20

One of the brands that did this, which I thought was good, was Liquid Death. They built a whole D2C range around there. You know it was water in a can, essentially, and they built the whole. I listened to the founder of it and he was talking about building up the demand and that was all about building a community all around, a way of living and a cool brand, basically, and then, obviously, then they started getting listings all around the world. But to bring that to life, we've got a case study here, um, from one of our clients, which is c4 energy. And uh, for those who don't know, c4 energy do a pre-workout. Well, they do various drinks, don't?

Will Ockenden: 15:56

they will yeah, they do pre-workout, they do various energy drinks. I mean, their brief to us really was look, we haven't got, you know, we've not got a direct to consumer proposition just yet. What we want to do is really build the brand in an authentic way as a means to start generating buzz and start generating listings. So we really kind of focused in on the brand being a kind of creator and community-led brand. We did lots and lots of influencer outreach with fitness communities, with various organizations like high rocks. They had kind of associations with crossfit and things like that and it was a very authentic approach really and we gradually over time started building up this really engaged community around the brand.

Will Ockenden: 16:41

As you can see, there's a few posts on the right and that started getting attention from buyers and actually we've, you know, after about six months it started gaining some traction and we got, for example, a listing in Anytime Fitness from one of the buyers at Anytime Fitness that had come across the brand. They saw there's a really kind of engaged community behind it and they that had come across the brand. They saw there's a really kind of engaged community behind it and they actually got listings in Anytime Fitness as a result of that and many more listings followed. So, as Chris said, it is really kind of building that community first before even starting those conversations with buyers. Funnily enough, the publishing industry works like this as well, so publishers will always look at an author's social media community when they're making a decision on whether to actually publish a book.

Chris Norton: 17:23

Music.

Will Ockenden: 17:23

do that as well with artists, yeah exactly, and those authors or artists that have got a highly engaged community. They know there's an existing fan base and they're much more likely to publish their work. Djs, all of that, yeah.

Chris Norton: 17:36

Yeah. What I liked about that, though, is that it's very it was very clear the the strategy it's um influences our community around fitness and workouts, which was really, really clear, and when you go on the social channels, you can really see that. And another example that we've got is a client of ours called drip, and again, it's a community first brand um, and it basically what we did was I just talked about about liquid death. Well, this is a similar product. It's a mineral water, again in a can, but it's combined. Some of the things we were talking about earlier will about pulling in celebrities, and this product's backed by the big grime artist and tv personality, big zoo. You may have seen him in various different tv panel shows, etc. Etc. And he backs this product heavily and his features in this ad, which we're about to show you in a minute.

Will Ockenden: 18:19

It's only brief um, and marketing is basically socially first, so it's all about the community tapping into the grime scene, and this has led to significant grassroots advocacy and malt interest yeah, and on that I think they just understand the community, you know, and they're producing content and music for that urban community and it just resonates and it just works and that's really given them some, uh, some strong buzz around the brand and talking of buzz will, and that's one of the second points that we've got is creating external buzz.

Chris Norton: 18:50

So generate word of mouth through pr and influencer collaborations to drive genuine word of mouth and buzz about the brand. It's clear that buzz works. So an example of that is we're going to take a bit of a nostalgia trip. So for those of you of a certain age like me and Will, you might remember the 90s ready to drink brand called Reef and we helped relaunch that after much, much consumer demand earlier this year. The launch went viral. It was amplified by some PR efforts that we did across trade, consumer media and social media, obviously. So we created a big hype around the 90s vibe and thankfully there's been further 90s stuff, with a couple of brothers that have announced a re-coming back. They don't need any extra marketing based on that.

Chris Norton: 19:35

I'm not saying this was in association with that, but this went viral. It seems to be having a bit of a revival the 90s is what I'm saying and we had over 1 million impressions from the content. It sold out in many B&M stores as soon as it hit the shelves and it broke the record on the direct-to-consumer website, which is phenomenal. So if you've seen Reef again. We were involved in that. So it just shows you that you can create some sort of real buzz, word of mouth around a particular product and it works to sell out your product. And now I'm going to hand over to will and he's going to talk about pr that engages the trade.

Will Ockenden: 20:09

Yeah, this is interesting. This is where we involved um tristan and james actually and we wanted to make this really, really practical. And we know that um engaging with the trade um, whoever they are, you know, typically it might be the grocer, it might be the drinks business, it is that's really important to a lot of brands and particularly when you're wanting to get new products listed. You know, getting that kind of hero coverage in the trade press can really build your profile amongst buyers. So we're going to really dig into how to do that. Before we do that, we just wanted to kind of recap on our approach really when it comes to this. You'll be familiar with this approach, call it the push pull model, and in our view, this is the the best and most effective strategy when it comes to public relations, um in in food and beverage. So, first of all, pull, which is really about um, what we call pull pr, which is all about generating listings, and you do that through an ongoing program of trade pr um and that needs to be something that is is always on, essentially, and you know, building your brand becoming familiar in in those trade titles and getting in front of buyers all the time. And then, on the other hand, we need to be doing push activity, which is all about driving that consumer demand through consumer PR, through influencer marketing, through organic social media and and really this push-pull working together is the route to success. So we're going to be talking now about the pull tactics that you can look at doing.

Will Ockenden: 21:30

So, first of all, we wanted to explore what actually makes a compelling story. So, when it comes to getting in front of that news editor, getting in front of the editor, you know what is it that journalists are actually looking for when it comes to a compelling story. Some of this might be quite obvious. Some of it, we hope will be, will be new to you. So, first of all, innovative product launches. So journalists are always interested in something that's genuinely cool and innovative.

Will Ockenden: 21:56

Now, what do we mean by genuinely cool and innovative? That means different things to different people, doesn't it? I'll come on to some examples in a moment. But the the more innovative particularly you can position your product as, the more likely it is to cut through. Secondly, um, you know we often kind of pitch marketing campaigns or marketing strategies to the trade. Now, that can work if those campaigns are disruptive. So the media trade media are always interested in hearing about disruptive marketing campaigns that might be challenging competitors, not necessarily naming them. I think this isn't about in America when they used to do those washing powders and they used to say you actually name the competitor and say we're 10 times better than the nearest competitor and actually name them. We're know you actually name the competitor and say we're 10 times better than the nearest competitor and actually name them. We're not suggesting you actually do that, but you can challenge other operators in the sector and we've actually got a case study that kind of illustrates this quite nicely in the beer sector.

Chris Norton: 22:54

I'm just thinking what's the Caterpillar for M&S Colin? The Caterpillar.

Will Ockenden: 22:57

Colin the Caterpillar. Oh, they went for it, didn't they? With that?

Chris Norton: 23:00

I was thinking Kevin, but that's Kevin the carrot and Colin the caterpillar, isn't it.

Will Ockenden: 23:04

What's the Aldi one called Cuthbert? Is it Cuthbert? Yeah, Cuthbert versus Cuthbert, and there's been some great.

Chris Norton: 23:08

TikTok content around that, but that's a whole legal thing that we'll move the hell away from. But, yeah, disruptive.

Will Ockenden: 23:23

Any kind of marketing that know, functional foods that cater to dietary needs We'll talk about that in a moment whether that's vegan, whether that's dairy-free, whether that's celiac and then significant brand changes. So you know we're not just talking a slightly different packet. You know we're talking about kind of major rebranding efforts. So when Mars Triple Treat range rebranded as Fruit and Nut, for example, that you know that was deemed big news and and worthy of those column inches um, and then this is a a bit of a broader point that we'll talk about. But anything that kind of reflects um current consumer preferences and trends, um is always going to resonate. So, um, you know, is, is there a kind of a wider demand for X, y or Z type of product internationally or in the UK? And if your product is adapting or in response to that, then yeah, absolutely newsworthy. Let's bring it to life with an example then.

Will Ockenden: 24:14

So we talked about kind of genuinely new, genuinely cool products. So one that kind of grabbed us recently Mirror Margarita, cool products. So, um, one that kind of grabbed us um recently mirror margarita um, which, um which was launched earlier in the year. So it was basically the world's first clear margarita um which which is pretty cool. I mean the packaging is great. The product immediately, uh is is is interesting and different and appealing.

Will Ockenden: 24:38

And actually when they launched it, uh, dino moncrief, who is a kind of world-renowned mixologist, made a number of clear margarita cocktails, which kind of shows product in use, and basically it became a really big-selling product. It got listings in Sainsbury's pretty soon and it was highly acclaimed. It won various gold medals at the Spirits Business, pre-mixed awards and ready-to-drink masters as well. But the point is, you know it's a great product and it's genuinely new, genuinely innovative and pretty cool and and that this you know think in terms of this when you're launching your product, is there an innovation angle you can craft or focus on? We get it. Not everybody's going to have a world first product. Every time we talked about kind of disruptive marketing strategies take, take yeah it's a cool campaign isn't it Taking?

Will Ockenden: 25:24

on competitors. Now again, if you drink lager, you will have no doubt noticed Madri. You know, madri, the taste of Madrid. You drink it and you feel the Mediterranean sun beating down on your neck. Actually, it's brewed in Tadcaster, which is about 11 miles north of Leeds, and there's a lot of other so-called Mediterranean lagers, which is one of the fastest growing lager categories, actually, mediterranean lager. A lot of these are brewed in the UK and kind of almost pretend that they're brewed in the Med. Now Estrella, which is a genuinely legit Spanish brewed lager, decided to call them out. So they launched a campaign which was basically a pr campaign out of home, um, calling out big british brewed brands masquerading as spanish beers I'm glad you read that out.

Will Ockenden: 26:13

I know there's a lot of a lot of bees in there isn't there. And obviously, um estrella glacier um is brewed in glacier since 1906. They've got a fantastic um kind of history and heritage. They're genuinely authentic and they obviously thought we're not standing for this, we're not having people trying to take away our authenticity. And essentially it got a load of cut through and they did a load of cool social assets they did out of home and it really cut through with the trade. It cut through with consumers.

Will Ockenden: 26:39

Ok, so you've identified your innovation angle. You're probably taking on competitors head on, whether you're choosing to name them or not. What elements do you need in a good story? Now, of course, visuals. Visuals will always sell a story. This goes without saying.

Will Ockenden: 26:56

But we need lifestyle images and pack shots, and both of those are really important. And obviously, make sure your images are high res. Product and use shots are always appreciated. And also consider things like cutouts. So, when you're commissioning photography, don't just do lifestyle, don't just do product shots. Make sure you get a wide range of them. And then, obviously, things like relevant product information, and we really need to go into detail here. Journalists are, you know, particularly on the trade, are absolutely interested in everything from pricing, abv format, dietary suitability so the more detailed the better. Quite honestly, when it comes to product information and then engaging quotes and this it always makes me laugh, actually, when I read a PR quote you know every chief exec is delighted to launch a new product or delighted that a new member of team is a new member of their team has joined, or something like that.

Will Ockenden: 27:42

So know, try and try and look beyond this, and an example being, um, we've just started working with a brand called chunk of devon, which um produces the best ever uh reviewed steak pie. So basically, it's won the taste awards for something like 11 or 12 years on the trot.

Will Ockenden: 27:59

It's amazing actually, by the way, if you ever get to try one but um, they, um, they have a kind of an internal line that we're, we're punk, not prim and everything in the way they talk about their brand, they, they talk about their product, has this kind of punk ethos and subsequently, every quote we have from the founders is different and and is interesting. And if you can be a bit different or interesting or engaging in your quotes, then it's going to get cut through and it's going to be the.

Chris Norton: 28:23

You know you're going to get two or three paragraphs rather than the single line when I used to teach pr at the university, I used to say that the quote was the section of your release or your story when you could actually add the color to the story, because it's the bit where you can have opinion yeah, absolutely press release and or whatever your story you're putting out, it's usually factual. But then the quote is the bit where you can add the colour and bring some depth and excitement to it.

Will Ockenden: 28:48

Particularly if you're a challenger brand, you absolutely should have an engaging quote and it's easy to get right, to be quite honest. So why do stories fail? Usually it's down to a lack of a clear news hook. You need to be absolutely crystal clear on what your story is and I think if you're pitching a product, you know there's no particularly fresh angle, there's no innovation. You know, save your time until you have got a stronger story. You know you don't want to be pitching absolutely everything all the time. You know. And equally, you need to make sure your pitches are specific to the readers. So if you're pitching to, you know, the morning advertiser, make sure it's relevant to the on trade, for example. Equally, if you're pitching to convenience store, you know the convenience store media, make sure it's relevant to the off trade. So we need to absolutely focus our story on our audience and make it relevant.

Will Ockenden: 29:39

Avoid excessive jargon and adjectives, as Chris said said. You know press releases role predominantly is to be factual. You know, of course in the quote you can add personality and a bit of color, but keep it straightforward, keep it factual. Imagine you're being charged per word. You know, get rid of that purple prose and and keep it, um, keep it straightforward brevity is your friend that's right and I mean I'm the worst offender, I think, when it comes to writing ridiculously overwritten press releases.

Will Ockenden: 30:07

And there's also, you know it's not just a news release, it's not just a press release. You know you really need to get to know the trade media and the team here at Prohibition are great at this. You know it's about reading every section. It's about getting to know all of the section editors. You know going for coffee with them, going for coffee with them, going for lunch with them, speaking to them about what they want. And you know there's things like, you know, opinion articles, op-eds, you know saturday essays, there's um interviews about where the brand has come from, where it's going. There's so much more opportunity if you can be really proactive beyond simply a press release. Um, and yeah, it comes down to relationships.

Will Ockenden: 30:41

Relationships take an awful lot of time. You know we we we've been um. You know we've got relationships over many years with some of these titles and you know that does take time. And yeah, and I mentioned this as well you know it's not just a case of banging out a release or banging out an email to the news desk. You know there's different section editors, so there's going to be an MPD editor, an FMCG editor, a drinks editor, like James is, and we need to tailor our pitches accordingly to these sections and actually understand what they want. And ultimately, it should be a symbiotic relationship, shouldn't it? We should give them really valuable, insightful content, and you know that helps them fill their pages with interesting content. And then, just before we go on to the next section, their pages with interesting content, um, and then just before we go on to the next section, um, some, we're always interested in kind of trends and developments, um, in in the market. I mean, we do. We do a social media trends webinar and podcast every year, don't we? In january?

Chris Norton: 31:34

yes, and you can sign up now if you want to register for the one that's in january.

Will Ockenden: 31:38

Segue a seamless, a seamless sales reference there. But, um, we found it quite interesting to hear from James and Tristan what they thought the big F&B trends for next year are going to be. So, health and wellness is going to be massive, and I think it has been massive this year really. But they gave examples of any products that we can align with health trends. So functionality in soft drinks around gut health so gut health is massive. Kombucha that's right. Kombucha kimchi Somebody like Dr Tim Spector is absolutely pushing this and he's now kind of an internet celebrity pushing the microbiome and gut health, isn't he?

Will Ockenden: 32:14

Things like meat-free options, health conscious dining, with that kind of balance between indulgence and health Anecdotally, actually is that's currently a big trend and a lot of journalists are interested in that kind of indulgence fee health discussion. Sustainability again, probably not that new to you, but this is going to continue being massive. So you know ongoing carbon reductions in in production, whatever it may be. And then, in terms of emerging innovations, this was quite interesting. So, um, tristan talked about the ready to drink coffee and tea trends and there's a lot of innovation coming out and that particularly targeting gen z at the moment.

Will Ockenden: 32:52

So watch this space, um. Craft beers, um, is going to remain strong and those kind of functional foods that are inspired by global trends, health or otherwise, are going to be big as well and low on no. Chris mentioned that in the insight. Actually, low and no is massive and continues to be massive. And now we're seeing not only low and no beers, but we're seeing low and no wines that actually taste half decent and they're not like schlur, if you remember that from the 80s and low and no gins and spirits as well what I've noticed in the last 12 months.

Chris Norton: 33:22

Air fryers have been around what two, three years, but now on products, whether it's frozen products or microwave products or whatever it is it's now got it. They've added the the air fryer times on a lot of products, which so that's just an innovation. It's taken a while, but it's good. It's now come through with the grilling or the microwaving and now the air frying is quite interesting air fryers are going to be the new microwave, aren't they In?

Will Ockenden: 33:41

a few years it'll be as common as a microwave.

Chris Norton: 33:43

Yeah, it should be, as well, yeah.

Will Ockenden: 33:46

So we've talked through the media trends, direct from the people that ultimately you want to speak to. Now there's a few other angles we wanted to talk about, and one really was reaching consumers. So we've talked about how to reach the trade. We obviously now need to kind of engage with consumers and drive that consumer demand for products. Now the way to do that is firmly through what we call integrated comms. Now, integrated comms also known as the PESO model, which you'll have heard us talk about numerous times.

Will Ockenden: 34:14

But the point is PESO, by the way, is paid, earned, shared and owned. So paid is things like social media conversion ads. It might be a billboard, it might be boosted. Content Earned is ultimately PR coverage. It might be influencers talking about your product. Shared is things like reviews or organic social media. And then owned is content that you own. So it might be a podcast you produce. It might be content on your website, whatever it may be.

Will Ockenden: 34:41

And the point is it gets you a load more bang for buck, doesn't it being integrated, and we should never think in silos. We shouldn't just issue a release, we shouldn't just do an ad. The fact is, consumers don't think in silos either, but there's a whole body of evidence suggesting that those brands that embrace integrated comms outperform those that don't. So this is some recent research. So, um, those companies who use integrated marketing, versus non-integrated, report three times the higher rate of effectiveness um than those that don't, which is uh, which is pretty compelling. Integrated campaigns across four or more channels outperform single or dual channel campaigns by 300 percent um. And there's a load of a load of other stats. But, and and you know the point is, integrated campaigns are the way to go if you want to drive real roi and input seven.

Chris Norton: 35:31

Is it seven touch points before somebody makes a purchasing decision? You don't just see something by seven touch points, isn't it?

Will Ockenden: 35:37

well that, yeah, I mean, that's exactly it that leads on to this, and we we advocate what we call channel neutral creative. So rather than coming up with an idea or a piece of creative that only works in one channel, we need to recognize the fact that consumers don't operate in silos. So you know a typical creative concept. Let's say the Australia Glacier campaign. Chances are a consumer would read about the campaign or a product in one of the papers or the trade press and then they might about it for two weeks. They might then go and see friends or they might see their friends talking about the campaign online. They might join in that conversation online. They might then take no action again for two or three weeks and then they might get some ads served via retargeting to them because they've kind of engaged with that content online and that might be the uh, you know the marketing intervention that actually tips them over to visit the website and purchase. But, like Chris said, they've actually engaged with that campaign five, six, seven times before they actually take action. So when we come up with creative concepts, we need to ensure it's flexible enough to work across many mediums. So it needs to work online, it needs to work in the real world. It needs to work as an event, it needs to work as a PR campaign and the more we can do this, the better impact our campaigns are going to have.

Will Ockenden: 36:49

They launched the world's first carbon neutral cask ale. So there was already a carbon neutral lager, which is a BrewDog product, but they decided to launch a carbon neutral cask. So essentially, we set up a stunt in the middle of the Yorkshire, three Peaks, and it was a pop-up beer garden and we called it the freshest beer garden in the world. It the freshest beer garden in the world and basically a pop-up bar serving thirsty hikers who happened to walk past on this kind of 26 mile round trip across multiple mountains. We shot loads of video content. We shot a drone over it. We invited influencers and journalists to attend. We actually used the creative as the basis of conversion ads and on their website and in the in blacksheet's visitor center.

Will Ockenden: 37:43

So a fully integrated campaign, um, playing across multiple touch points, and it actually led to respire, which is um, the uh you know the name of the beer being a hugely successful launch for them and actually outperforming their expectations by some way. Um and I didn't mention this, but the? Um the pub, the pop-up pub, was called the breathe in. We love a pun here at prohibition, so it's called the breathe in, which kind of pushes this carbon neutral message. Final point um, and this, this, this goes for all sorts of every discipline of marketing. Actually, we'd advocate this. We've actually done a really interesting podcast on this um a few months ago, didn't we?

Will Ockenden: 38:23

about customer understanding with katie tucker yeah, so she's written a book on it which would well recommend you reading, because it really kind of breaks down customer understanding into really can you remember what the book was called, william? It was called do penguins eat peaches? Yeah, there we go.

Will Ockenden: 38:36

Well, remember, thank you and it's because it's so different and such a disruptive name, I think yeah, and the point is, you know we don't need to have massive budgets to have customer understanding, but the best brands come up with the best campaigns through that kind of, through those amazing moments of customer understanding. We've got some examples in a moment. So where I mean? Katie will tell you all of this. But you know, where do you get insight from? Everywhere is the answer.

Will Ockenden: 39:00

We don't need to necessarily commission a twenty thousand pound qual and quant survey, do we? We can look at our social media data, for example. We can look at the type of questions, um, or how you know or product and use conversations on social media. Tiktok's actually great for that, isn't it? You can actually you know if you, if you search on tiktok, you can actually look at your product and how people are using it, and often that's where some of the kind of early trends come from, which, which I'll come onto as well, ga hugely useful. We should always get our heads around that. There's an awful lot of kind of market insight and third-party reports. The trade press, particularly, will publish an awful lot of this Social media listening where we actually look at how our products are talked about and used in the real world.

Chris Norton: 39:42

And your competitors, which is always useful.

Will Ockenden: 39:44

And that's about what we call finding content. White space isn't it. It helps you not say what everybody else is saying but, it actually helps you find a gap in the market that you can offer something yeah, exactly customer data is incredibly useful.

Will Ockenden: 39:57

Um and um anecdotal evidence. You know, you might just have conversations about what people you know, and arguably some of the great campaigns are from anecdotal evidence, but the point is there's an awful lot of ways to get data and insight about your product and this is something you need to be doing all the time to understand where the gaps are and what the opportunities are. So a couple of campaigns that use insight um and uh. You know brands have just got it.

Will Ockenden: 40:21

Burger king has, uh, has recently done a campaign around um, so the, the creative, is women in hospital, clearly having just given birth, and the, the, the kind of copy is, you know, arrived at 1851 or arrived at whatever the time is, and it actually shows them eating a Burger King. And this was based on Burger King and Mumsnet, I believe, and they did some kind of joint research around the fact that mums basically don't have the time, don't feel like slash, forget to eat while giving birth, and not while giving birth, while in labor, which can take hours and hours and hours, if not days and days and days. And then one of the first things they thought about when, finally, they have given birth and they're in in a stable and safe condition is right. I need to eat some food, and a large proportion of them actually ordered their favorite takeaway via delivery or via uber eats and burger king ranks really highly in that so they wanted to kind of celebrate this fact that yeah, I shared this campaign on my linkedin and I got um my sister.

Chris Norton: 41:19

I had loads of people comment because it's quite a controversial campaign, because some people see that the the moment of childbirth is a is a special moment that you're never going to celebrate again, whereas as so I've shared it online, ask people what they thought, and my sister replied and said, just to let you know, chris, when she had her daughter Bella, she said within an hour I'd ordered five guys. So there's the insight.

Will Ockenden: 41:42

Anecdotally, Another campaign. We talked about product and use. Now it's always worth kind of trawling social media to look at how people are using or consuming your product and Absolute Vodka. It turns out Bella Hadid, the model, was pushing a recipe which started trending massively on social, particularly on TikTok, called Pen a la Vodka. So it's a kind of a recipe that she'd created where she mixed vodka in with pen pasta tomato sauce, and Heinz noticed that this was trending and noticed that this was gaining a ton of traction and actually did this brilliant brand partnership with Absolute and actually did a limited edition range of Absolute tomato sauce, which I'd imagine probably tastes all right, because you can actually mix vodka and cook with vodka, can't you?

Chris Norton: 42:34

Yeah.

Will Ockenden: 42:35

When I used to work with Revolution Vodka Bars they used to do they did a vodka burger once, which was a kind of beef patty mixed with vodka. They did.

Chris Norton: 42:42

Chili vodka I had that.

Will Ockenden: 42:44

But this is actually with food. They did a chicken vodka pizza Actually tastes okay. I know it sounds rank, doesn't?

Chris Norton: 42:52

it. Yeah, it doesn't sound the best.

Will Ockenden: 42:54

And this gained so much traction and essentially it's an ad based around Insight, which generated a huge amount of media coverage.

Chris Norton: 43:00

It generated word of mouth, Great partnership basically as well.

Will Ockenden: 43:03

Yeah and we're big fans of the unusual brand partnership here at Prohibition. So we've talked about the challenges in the food and beverage sector. You will know all of this Over. The challenge is in the food and beverage sector. You will know all of this Over the last two years. You'll be acutely aware of this. But the point is, you know those brands that do have that amazing insight. They are a bit disruptive, they're clever about what they do, they can cut through, and cutting through and building your brand community is a way of getting listings and is a way of engaging with consumers, isn't it?

Chris Norton: 43:32

Definitely.

Will Ockenden: 43:33

So what are our takeaways? Terrible pun takeaways. I didn't mean to put that in, but here we go. So what to do differently tomorrow? Um, this pull push model, this kind of double-pronged trade and consumer approach no doubt you will do this anyway, but it's a really healthy way to operate continually. Drive um demand from buyers and engage with buyers through trade, pr and building your kind of organic communities and things like that. But equally, drive consumer demand through really clever integrated campaigns. Grassroots buzz around your brand yes, it's a way to excite buyers, but it's also a really effective way of exciting consumers, and that can be done at scale and that can be considerably more cost effective than having to just buy your way into a market. So it's never a bad thing to kind of grow that kind of organic uh community around your product, and you can do that through influencers, you can do that through being brilliant at social media engagement.

Will Ockenden: 44:26

You can do that through experiential, experiential um, I think this came through really strongly when we looked at trade pr. Um, we can be creative and we can be bold with trade press. We don't have to be boring just because it's the trade press and this is a theme we always talk about at prohibition. You know, when we talk about business to business pr or business to business campaigns, a lot of people think this is dull, this, this needs to be boring. But, um, business journalists want something interesting and engaging as well, and we always try and push creativity and insight in whatever we're doing.

Chris Norton: 45:00

And it's the same with the trade press the guys in advertising say that if your campaign is dull you have to spend 40 percent more to get cut through.

Will Ockenden: 45:08

Is that right? Well, no campaign should ever be dull, should?

Chris Norton: 45:11

it? No, it shouldn't, but a lot, a lot of campaigns are, aren't they?

Will Ockenden: 45:15

um, customer understanding and again, absolutely um urge you to listen to the katie tucker um podcast episode. But you know, customer understanding will really focus your efforts. It will help you understand, okay, what do your, what do your customers care about, what channels are they on, what media do they read? And also, it will bring you amazing ideas. And the more you dive into that customer insight, the more ideas you'll get. That will cut through like the Pen a la Vodka idea and always think integrated. If we're engaging with consumers, we need to maximize our time and effort and we know budgets. You know, while budgets are increasing, they still need to be accountable. So if we think integrated, we get to hit consumers six, seven, eight times more than if we're just doing a kind of monochannel campaign. That was a bit of a whistle stop too, wasn't it?

Chris Norton: 46:01

Yeah, it was, and obviously the food and drink sectors are challenging to get cut through, so I appreciate that there's people out there trying their best to get their products listed. Hopefully we've given you some insight on how you can increase awareness of your products. Do not underestimate the power of the trade media, like some clients just say, oh, I don't want to do trade media, I want to do consumers, I just want to do some, just want to do trade. I think you need both if you want to get a truly successful campaign that's going to cut through and get people to buy your product, list your products and, you know, even if you've direct to consumer, build some sort of social media hype. Something that we haven't really mentioned on here is, if you are struggling with that, you can drop us a line. There's a link inside the show notes that you can click to book a call with us and have a chat. Just tell us what your challenges are. We'd be happy to help with free advice, no obligation call. If you want to chat, feel free to click the link and you can talk to Will or I and we'll happily talk you through what you're doing and how we can help.

Chris Norton: 47:01

Thanks everybody for listening to Embracing Marketing Mistakes. I hope you enjoyed today's session. Please remember to click the links in the show notes We've got. You can sign up for future events or you can. I said you can have a chat with will arrive, no obligation call. We're happy to chat. Other than that, make sure that you keep on listening to the podcast. Try at least give us a thumbs up or subscribe to the pod. Every like and follow is massively appreciated and we'll catch you next week on the pod. See you later.