Food & Beverage

CASE STUDY

Scoperta!

Wooing young wine lovers with break-through creative and a full-funnel media campaign

Challenge

It turns out wine drinkers in America are thoroughly bored with the current online shopping options and wine clubs. Instead, young, wine-curious consumers want to broaden their horizons, but they’re frustrated that it’s so hard to explore America’s thousands of independent wineries.  

Enter Scoperta!, a start-up that provides a richer experience for shopping for wine, including a fun, manageable exploration process. To disrupt the e-commerce wine market, Scoperta! needed name recognition and a digital marketing strategy to drive demand. 

Scoperta! tasked Prophet with two objectives: create a buzz-worthy digital activation to accelerate name recognition, and develop a digital media campaign that included management, planning, buying and SEO strategy. 

Solutions

Our team leaned into the brand’s charm, wit and audacious name to develop and orchestrate a digitally-focused campaign to connect with a new wave of discerning wine buyers – through an opera, of course! 

First, we created a video opera, complete with beautiful arias. It tells the tragic tale of poor Brenda, a wine-loving woman disenchanted with the typical services of e-commerce wine brands. Her love affair with Scoperta! brought our “wine discovery made simple” campaign to life.  

To reach our audience of adventurous customers aged 25 to 55, we developed a full-funnel media plan that leveraged video, podcast, search and social to drive awareness. Meanwhile, display, search and social drove consideration and conversion. Our team strategically chose specific tactics across each funnel stage, with prospecting audiences at the top and high intent/retargeting audiences at the bottom. We then paired the campaign’s creative with each tactic accordingly and tested various formats to optimize the performance.  

Results

The campaign creative and media plan drove unprecedented engagement on YouTube. As we continually solidified learnings from smaller segments, we opened the campaign to a national buy, increasing brand awareness and driving sales during the company’s first months in the market.   

The opera video has received several industry awards and recognition:

  • Finalist for Most Effective Use of Video in the 2022 Drum Social Media Awards
  • Gold awards for two categories in the 2023 Muse Creative Awards: Music video Category and Food & Beverage Video Category
  • Bronze Honor in Medium-Length Video in the 15th annual Shorty Awards
  • Shortlisted for two categories in the 2022 New York Festivals’ Advertising Awards. 

Impact

1.8M

Video completions across YouTube and CTV

90%

Video completion rate 

CASE STUDY

AB InBev

Shaping the vision for a holistic and forward-looking ESG strategy

Challenge

After defining new sustainability commitments, kickstarting various ESG initiatives and building a strong team to further progress, AB InBev needed to develop a vision for its holistic and forward-looking agenda. Without a unifying ambition, ESG would remain a “nice to do” rather than a critical component in the corporate strategy. AB InBev called upon Prophet to help shape a narrative that captured and amplified its bold mission to “Dream Big for a Future with More Cheers.” 

Solutions

Prophet’s multidisciplinary teams started with a 4-week sprint, conducting a workshop to define the scope and depth of the work. In their conversations with the AB InBev team, leaders shared commercial goals and key themes for prioritization, and their linkages to brand purpose. 

Our team then performed an internal audit of AB InBev’s current sustainability programs, in collaboration with subject matter experts, to develop a deep understanding of results to date. Next, we looked outwards, auditing other category-leading peers and reflected on the UN Sustainable Development Goals to extract key themes, define issues and opportunities in the market and establish eight strategic tentpoles for the narrative. We reviewed our findings with the AB InBev team and refined them with our “where to play” and “how to win” framework.  

With these considerations in mind, Prophet delivered a cohesive and impactful narrative for the client centered around a unified, ESG-focused purpose. The narrative was translated into creative copy, visual design assets, narrative video and a brand voice toolkit to effectively bring its story to market. And to ensure that ESG touched every part of the corporate strategy, we developed a robust governance and oversight model for future work. 

Results

The work developed by Prophet captured a bold sustainability vision and ambition that is currently being used to guide internal company behaviors and external go-to-market priorities for AB InBev’s ESG focus themes: “Local, Natural, and Inclusive.” In bringing these issues to the core of its work, AB InBev continues to strive for a more sustainable, equitable and profitable world. 

And, in 2022, our work was awarded Silver for Best Brand Development Project to Reflect a Change in Mission, Values or Positioning in the North America Transform Awards.

CASE STUDY

Gatorade

Rehydrating an iconic beverage brand

Challenge

Gatorade, the one-time leader in the $5BN hydration category, was losing relevance among competitive athletes. The landscape was proliferated with energy drinks, enhanced waters and other sports drinks, and athlete needs were changing.

Prophet partnered with Gatorade to rehydrate this iconic brand, and create an unprecedented path for growth through new athlete needs, occasions and categories.

Solutions

We conducted extensive elite athlete research – attended (and participated) in marathons and triathlons, conducted digital ethnographies and hired videographers to journal athletes’ journeys in training and competition.

Through this research, we uncovered eight functional needs that athletes had in addition to hydration, as well as what they consumed, when, where, why, etc. We learned that Gatorade was the #1 most trusted brand in sports fuel, yet only participated in hydration. And although Gatorade continues to dominate the hydration category, less than 10% of athletes’ consumption needs are related to hydration.  For the remaining 90% of athletes’ consumption needs, there is no trusted brand. Gatorade is one of the most trusted brands in the category, but it didn’t even have a product.

By understanding the wide range of need states for athletes, it enabled us to build a plan for Gatorade’s growth from a “hydration brand” to a “sports fuel company” which included the launch of a variety of new products.

Results

As a result of our work, Gatorade has embarked on its most aggressive brand transformation ever from hydration to sports fuel and achieved remarkable business impact such as:

  • Double digit volume declines reversed to 15% growth in year 1 for Gatorade base brand.
  • Over $3B in franchise revenue increases since launch of the strategy.
  • Expanded frame of reference beyond $6B hydration market into the $72B sports fuel market.
  • Launched new product forms with new benefits -gels, bars, shakes, chews, powders, etc.
  • Expanded into technology enabled wearable/durable goods.
  • Fastest growing brand in the PepsiCo portfolio.

Impact

15%

growth for base brand

3b

dollar franchise revenue growth

1

fastest-growing brand for Pepsi

CASE STUDY

Olive Garden

Building a relentlessly relevant brand

Challenge

Olive Garden, Darden Restaurant’s largest brand, is the leader in casual dining – a category they created over 3 decades ago. With a rich history and over $3.5B in annual sales, they were facing a daunting challenge – how to remain relevant in a world that’s changed drastically since the inception of casual dining?

It’s a category-wide challenge: a sea of sameness with “food at a price” promotions, increased competition from fast-casual options, and decreasing relevance and consideration for their core guests and Millennials. The Olive Garden leadership team knew they needed to get out ahead of these challenges in order to remain the category leader and drive growth.

The challenge was clear – how to grow brand relevance with their loyal fans while building relevance with new audiences? How could they force re-consideration and build equity for the Olive Garden brand while staying true to their heritage and driving growth through their strongest assets?

Solutions

We believe relentlessly relevant brands need to obsess over their customers, so we took it a bit further: We became them. We ate bowl after bowl of pasta in the restaurants, talked to dozens of guests, and scoured the social media landscape. One thing became strikingly clear – the passion for Olive Garden stems from some of their most important assets –family and breadsticks. (C’mon… who doesn’t love those breadsticks?!)

To amplify that passion, we found innovative ways to bring breadstick fans closer to the food and family they love. In partnership with the Olive Garden marketing, PR, and Culinary team, we developed “Breadstick Nation” as a platform for new breadstick products and experiences, such as breadstick sandwiches and Olive Garden food trucks. Citizens of Breadstick Nation unite!

Results

The proof is in the dough. Breadstick Nation received over one-billion social media mentions before any products launched and it has now been featured by major media outlets from NPR to Buzzfeed. Breadstick fans are already lining up at food trucks across the country, and tracking the Breadstick Nation summer tour via Olive Garden’s new Breadstick Nation website. Darden Restaurants’ stock surged 15% and hit a new all-time high in the weeks following the #breadsticknation launch.

The celebration of Olive Garden’s key assets isn’t ending with the breadstick. We also focused on family and togetherness to develop “Little Italy,” an engaging kids club with fun activities for kids in the restaurant and online, which is being tested in select markets. And several other yet-to-be-launched platforms.

By obsessing over the guest, staying true to the brand, and creating inspired new ideas that align with the passions of core guests, Olive Garden is charting a path of relentless relevance and business growth for generations to come.

CASE STUDY

Chick-fil-A

Reimagining an experience for a quick-service giant

Challenge

Chick-fil-A, a leader in the quick-service industry, was growing faster than it ever imagined. With double-digit sales growth year after year and new restaurants opening up all over the country, it was becoming increasingly important that the thousands of restaurant operators and headquarter employees were aligned around a vision for the future of the company.

One of the most important channels Chick-fil-A uses to communicate its business vision is its annual event that brings the entire organization together for four days. This event had been occurring for over 40 years, however, the approach and experience had become predictable and was losing relevance. Prophet was engaged to provide a “fresh set of eyes” to this event with the goal of rethinking how it could more effectively inspire Chick-fil-A Operators to take their businesses, and even their lives, to the next level.

Solution

Prophet took leaders at Chick-fil-A through a strategic process to reimagine and redefine this annual event, and to elevate its purpose and impact well beyond just a few short days. Prophet then helped design an entire experience with multiple formats that reflected how Operators wanted to engage with each other and the organization. The result was a newly branded and newly defined event called NEXT.

At NEXT, key leaders and external speakers were able to share inspirational perspectives and a vision for the future through bite-sized TED-style talks during “Common Ground” time. Breakout sessions became “Labs,” and the “Expert Corner,” and gave attendees the chance to work together to hone specific skills and engage with speakers in a more intimate format. The typical corporate expo became the “Garages,” which brought the most critical initiatives across the organization together into a highly experiential and hands-on format.

Results

Prior to NEXT and Prophet’s involvement, there was a sense of frustration from Operators that the event, which was once meant for them, had lost its focus. However, following the first reimagined event, attendees and especially Operators felt re-engaged, empowered and inspired to be part of such an incredible organization. In fact, more than 80% shared they were likely to make a change in their business or their lives as a result of NEXT.

CASE STUDY

Gourmet Burger Kitchen

Creating a new visual and verbal identity

Challenge

Founded in 2001, Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK) helped move the burger from grease to gourmet indulgence in the UK. But, after a period of rapid growth as customers’ expectations changed and the market began bustling with new competitors, GBK was beginning to lose its personality and direction. Already tackling some of the issues head on, the senior team brought us on board to help define a clear purpose that could drive real change across a large, multi-lingual service organization.

Solutions

Through a series of workshops, we helped GBK rediscover what brought them together, what mattered most to them and what would help them stand out in the market – their burger obsession. This key insight led to five core beliefs and a brand strategy that would be applied across every aspect of the company’s operations from menu creation, retail environment design and hiring practices.

Results

The result is a brand platform that the GBK leadership has personally invested in and has been passionate about advocating across the company. We created a new visual and verbal identity to reinforce the idea of this gang of obsessives coming together to spread burger joy. With inspiration from existing clubs — from Hell’s Angels to the Boy Scouts — the new identity never takes itself too seriously but venerates the gourmet burgers at the heart of everything they do.

CASE STUDY

Keurig Green Mountain

Energizing an iconic brand portfolio

Challenge

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR), a small Vermont coffee company, acquired Keurig, a manufacturer of single-serve coffee brewers. A few years later, GMCR realized that in order to unlock growth, they needed a strategy that would successfully bring the two businesses together. The company engaged Prophet to support the large-scale transformation required to manage and accelerate business growth.

Solutions

We began our journey by setting the strategic foundation — designing a best practice marketing organization and clarifying the brand architecture required to drive growth. Once the internal structure was established, Prophet re-energized the flagship product brands, Keurig and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, with a strategy grounded in their heritage but positioned for their future. We set out to transform Keurig into a brewing system that could stand for much more than just coffee and aspired to expand Green Mountain from its New England roots to a globally recognized brand.

By spending time with Keurig advocates, we uncovered how valuable the product has been for reinventing consumers’ ordinary routines. Building off of the characteristics of simplicity, consistency, convenience and personalization, we developed a positioning centered on how Keurig makes it easy to make the things that make your day. We designed a new brand identity inspired by the ease of the push of a button and the choice of pods offered by the Keurig system.

Green Mountain Coffee, with its strong roots in Vermont, has a rich history in fair trade, social responsibility and carefully selected and roasted coffee. The new branding, inspired by its birthplace, honors its legacy but with a more contemporary look and feel. The new symbol embodies the company’s roots featuring the region’s signature geography and the core of its business — the coffee bean.

We helped Keurig Green Mountain come to life through two unique visual systems, united by a new corporate identity and logo that combines elements of their two main brands.

Results

Keurig Green Mountain has launched its new branding and is leveraging this new identity to expand its offerings into new products, and take Green Mountain Coffee into a new line of Organics.

“Prophet has been critical in the growth of our marketing capabilities, especially in a part of our business where we were trying to go from one brand to another very quickly. The company is filled with great strategists who happen to operate in a marketing realm. But the thinking transcends marketing and has a much greater impact.”

TJ Whalen
Former Chief Strategy Officer at Keurig Green Mountain

CASE STUDY

MET-Rx

Creating an aspirational brand in a functional category

Challenge

30 years ago, MET-Rx invented protein powder. But, as competitors caught up, MET-Rx didn’t continue as innovators of the category. Over time, the brand lost its relevance and limited its growth by focusing on the culture of professional body-building. So, Met-Rx partnered with Prophet to revitalize its messaging strategy in order to take back the category it created and regain relevance in mainstream culture.

Solutions

We designed a research strategy to better understand the MET-Rx customer—who they are, what matters to them and what they’re looking for. We engaged them in intimate co-creation focus groups and mobile shop-alongs to get ideas for how MET-Rx could begin to speak to them. Then, leveraging the strengths of our business in strategy, marketing and design, Prophet developed various brand messaging platforms and tested them in qualitative sessions with consumers and stakeholders alike. The rich feedback, suggestions and insight we gleaned from the testing sessions gave us specific direction so we could create the final brand idea.

Results

Since launching its new messaging strategy, Met-Rx has revitalized its brand by comprehensively rolling out the Prophet-created “You Can’t Fake Strong” brand idea. This new direction includes a new website, logo refresh, brand line, brand story, updated product packaging and partnerships.

Prophet was also engaged to help create a name and key messaging for their latest product innovation which reinforces the brand idea. With their new direction, Met-Rx has developed a clear path forward for both innovation and communications. With the strategic partnership of Tough Mudder, MET-Rx is living the “You Can’t Fake Strong” brand and quickly regaining relevance with mainstream athletes.

CASE STUDY

Friesland Campina

Doubling revenues for a beverage company across international markets

Challenge

Royal Friesland Campina was looking to profitably double revenues from its dairy-based beverage division by 2020 and become the world’s leading naturally healthy beverage company. The company faced tough competition due to increasing commoditization across the industry and needed an effective brand-led strategy to break through the category and command higher margins.

Solutions

We conducted a comprehensive market assessment across seven Southeast Asian, MENA and African markets, including Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Dubai/UAE, Nigeria, and developed a segmentation based on consumer needs, product consumption habits, and brand perceptions. Based on executive interviews and beverage category consumption data, Prophet provided strategic recommendations to realign RFC’s brand portfolio and rationalized it to focus on fewer, stronger, core brands.

In addition, based on consumer need states research and beverage consumption data, Prophet identified several growth opportunities for RFC’s Dairy Based Beverages business. Twenty opportunities were distilled down to eleven highly attractive ones. These prioritized innovation platforms were brought to life by defining the opportunity’s points of consumption.

Results

The client accepted and applauded both the portfolio and dairy-based beverages growth strategy recommendations. Prophet was selected to lead a global multi-city road show to gain internal stakeholder buy-in for the implementation of both recommended strategies.

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