RetailWire Discussion: CPGmatters: Enjoy Life Foods Rides Mobile's Reach

Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of part of a current article from the monthly e-zine, CPGmatters.

Enjoy Life Foods, which makes packaged gluten-free and allergen-free products, launched an aggressive mobile marketing program 18 months ago and purposely rolled it out without a proprietary app. The result? The 10-year-old company posted a 43 percent increase in sales in 2012.

"We want to live on other companies' apps," Joel Warady, chief sales and marketing officer, stated in a presentation at the LEAD Marketing Conference in Chicago.

"We can absolutely track this through coupon redemptions and other programs that we only do on social that are driving it through social to mobile, and people using mobile in-store," he adds. "Fifty-three percent of our shoppers tell us that they are using smartphones in the store while they are shopping. To us, that is a big number and that's why we are utilizing this technology so much."

The company monitors how its products are listed on specialty mobile apps like "Is that Gluten Free?" and "Find Me Gluten Free." For example, Mr. Warady found some outdated product images on one app. "We want to make sure the information is current and up to date. You want your customer to trust that the information they get while they are in the store is real and correct," he says.

"Another reason we don't have our own app is, there are so many really good apps out there. So we want to make it easy for the consumer to use them," he adds.

An internal chief listening officer monitors consumer comments and postings on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. "That's their job. We hired them right out of college and their job is to listen to what people are saying about us."

Mr. Warady says there is great value in some consumers' postings. He points out one on Facebook where a shopper was so excited to find Plentils, a new Enjoy Life product, she went on to tell how many children she has, what their allergies are, what store she shops in, what she likes to buy, and what other products she'd like to see. This is information that would normally come from expensive market research, but it was offered freely.

Enjoy Life combines analog thinking with digital technology, and doesn't get deeply involved in much-discussed mobile functions like QR codes and geolocation.

"They are great, but it's not what people are doing," Mr. Warady reports. They are using social media "to share stuff while they are in the store. We are very focused on word of mouth. Smartphones enable us to create word of mouth on steroids."

He adds, "We think the power of the smartphone is less about what the retailer does with it and more about what the consumer does with it, connecting with other consumers," he says.

Mobile Propels Enjoy Life Foods in Growing 'Free-From' Market - CPGmatters

Discussion Questions:

What lessons does Enjoy Life Foods' success with mobile marketing offer to brands looking connect and gain insights from consumers? What initial steps would you suggest for smaller brands looking to extend their social reach?

While we value unfettered opinion, we urge you to show respect and courtesy for people or companies about whom you comment. Keep in mind that this is a public, professional business discussion. RetailWire reserves the right to edit or refuse the publication of remarks that we deem unsuitable. We may also correct for unintended spelling and grammatical errors.

Comments:

Enjoy Life seems to be successful by following the basic tenets of good social media marketing: Monitor what is being said about your products and listen, keep information about your product up to date and engage in a dialog with consumers, while resisting the urge to sell.

This is not rocket science. It takes time and resources to effectively run a social media campaign. Enjoy Life does all of these things, and their sales reflect those efforts.

[Image of: View Braintrust Panelist button]
Max Goldberg, Founding Partner, The Radical Clarity Group

Success leaves clues. Enjoy Life Foods recognizes the use of social media as a version of the "digital backyard fence" in which it is listening to current and potential customers. This is a modern day version of "guerrilla marketing." The key takeaway is listen, listen, listen and adapt as necessary.

[Image of: View Braintrust Panelist button]
Richard J. George, Ph.D., Professor of Food Marketing, Haub School of Business, Saint Joseph's University

"Active listening" should the be slogan of the age, for marketers and retailers, in the cloud and on dry land.

This is especially true for smaller and specialized brands, who will want to invest efforts in finding, cultivating and holding close their particular audiences.

The new market reality may be that your niche is an evenly distributed subset of the population in every corner of the country. You can be way below critical mass in any geography or within any demographic, but social media creates virtual territories that can be highly concentrated around one or more key values.

Enjoy Life Foods' experience suggests that a small brand can prosper if it listens actively to define that territory, then owns it using social media.

[Image of: View Braintrust Panelist button]
James Tenser, Principal, VSN Strategies

The standout strategy from Enjoy Life is its dedication to leveraging third party apps rather than creating its own. Stephen Quinn, Walmart's CMO recently stated that having the ability to integrate with third party apps is a top challenge and opportunity for the world's biggest retailer. Enjoy Life thought it through and was smart to pick a strategy that, at the end of the day, will glean the insights, and customer engagement opportunities, that really matter.

[Image of: View Braintrust Panelist button]
Carol Spieckerman, President, newmarketbuilders

I remember when "mobile marketing" meant home delivery. But, I understand that Enjoy Life is basically a new age, non-perishable snack company that piggybacks on others' mobile apps to tell folks where to buy their stuff. Is that right? Then, they very actively use social media to promote their products.

My initial response is, if 53% of their customers use smartphones to shop while in the store, why don't customers simply walk over to the gluten-free, allergy-free department and take a look? Or, use the company's store locater computer function before shopping?

Anyhow, for those interested in this business model, a similar one can be found at www.naturebox.com/sunset. Naturebox sells products similar to Enjoy Life's, but they deliver them in a box to your home. They recently raised $2M seed money to accelerate their business.

[Image of: View Braintrust Panelist button]
M. Jericho Banks PhD, President, CEO, Forensic Marketing LLC