Chapter 9

Mixing up your marketing

It is no accident that Boost Juice achieved 94 per cent brand awareness in Australia in just five years. After all, there’s no point in having a terrific product if nobody has ever heard of it!

Much has been made of Boost marketing and, the truth is, it should be. We weren’t the first juice bar, but we were the first in most people’s minds. At one point, there were 47 different juice bar brands, vying to be in the top two to survive. Boost was the brand that made it through.

It may be old school but the philosophies of Ries and Trout, covered in their book The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, were followed to a T. This is marketing defined simply as find out what customers want and give it to them — but it’s only half the story. The other half of the story for Boost was find things that they could talk about and give it to them. So consumer desire and innovation became our mantra.

Early on, so we had a flag for our team to point to, we came up with the ‘Boost JAM Factor’, which still stands today. JAM stands for Juxtapose, Assimilate and Make your mark, as follows:

• Juxtapose: If the other guys do it, we don’t!

What can we do because we are small and don’t answer to a marketing committee? Things like the ‘What’s ya name’ game (where customers receive a free smoothie if we call their name), or ‘Boost Vibe Challenges’ (where customers do crazy stuff for free smoothies). Another promotion that was a huge success for us was the ‘Give away a Boost store’ promotion. We ran this in conjunction with a major radio station, and it formed the station’s major rating promotion for the year. The concept was a bit like MasterChef — we short-listed 100 people and then worked with these contestants and, eventually, through a series of workshops and interviews, reduced the list to ten people. We then reduced the list even further, until we got to a final three, all of whom were given a key — and the person with the key that opened the door to the store owned it. (We were worried that the winner may end up not being satisfied with the win — after all, not everyone is suited to being a business owner; it’s hard work and not everyone understands the reality of running your own business. So we had a fallback — in six months, the person could choose to keep the store or take $50 000.) The exposure from the promotion was incredible — sales in the state in which the promotion was held went up 20 per cent and we received over $1 million in free advertising. These are all things that the big guns of the world couldn’t do, and they’re innovative and new food retail ideas.

• Assimilate: Find ideas everywhere and from anyone at any time.

Tweak these ideas, twist them, and blend them into another ‘by Boost’ idea. Never stop searching and assimilating ideas from the Boosties (staff who work in the stores).

• Make your mark: If you do something, do it big!

Don’t be included in the ‘and thanks to …’ list with eight other sponsors. Do one big thing great, for maximum cut through.

Using this basic formula, we smashed into the minds of Australian youth, and they loved it. These Australians are now in their thirties and still drinking Boost.

Why our marketing strategy worked

Here are some of the reasons our marketing strategy worked (in no particular order):

• Vision: ‘Love Life’ was our soul. If something could make people smile, we had licence to do it.

• Loyalty: Our Boosties believed in us and were proud to work in our stores. Because of this loyalty, ideas were well executed in store.

• Saying yes: We told staff to not think too much about an idea, just have a crack, and say yes! Some of our ideas may not have become a reality if we had put it to a vote.

• Radio: We couldn’t afford television advertising, but radio was incredible for building our brand. We still only buy breakfast spots on high rotation.

• Pillars: We know what supports our brand: taste, the experience, health and me. If even one of our pillars gets a crack in it, we put energy and focus on it and fix it.

• Brainstorming: We allow for the energy flow of an idea, and let even the craziest idea have its space to grow and develop into something magical. When one of the team suggested doing a kids’ cup promo with The Wiggles six years ago, it was so ‘off brand’ for our hip little Boost brand that I had to try very hard not to blurt out, ‘No, stop!’ The team member worked on it, came up with a vision on how it could all work in harmony, and bingo — we nervously proceeded into one of the best things we still do today.

It’s important to push the boundaries philosophically. It’s my objective that Boost will have a huge impact on the health of our society — a society that’s becoming increasingly overweight. Research indicates that the increase in obesity in children in Australia is in line with the growth in fast-food outlets. I think I’m in a very exciting position to make a difference in the future. If I can create a trend in health and make Boost a phenomenally successful healthy product, perhaps others will see that there’s money in health, and they will make more healthy products. I think it’s already happening. By promoting our ‘Love Life’ idea, we’re driving home not only brand extension, but also life expansion!