Perfect Fusion
Perfect Fusion
When one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious
kitchen goods companies decided to launch in the UK,
it turned to agency MBA to adapt to the digital age.
Breville has immediate name recognition, yet the Breville brand
in the UK is an entirely separate entity to that of the Australian
original, which sells both there and in markets including
America. A new, non-Breville brand would be needed.
It would also be launching in a cluttered marketplace where luxe
gadgets compete for shelf space with basic and own brands – the
UK has ample choice when it comes to mixers, toasters, kettles,
juicers and coffee-makers. Certainly, nobody else had dared to
launch such a comprehensive range all at once.
The launch would be supported by a minimal sales and marketing
spend – essentially, the new brand would be operating in the
UK as if it were a start-up, albeit a start-up with the heft of a
multinational research and development department behind it.
It was against such a backdrop that Sage by Heston Blumenthal
was born in Autumn 2012. The brand name, Sage, reflecting both
wisdom and the kitchen herb was finalised only days before
meetings with key retailers – five names were presented to a
consumer panel, with Sage the overwhelming favourite. Wisely,
the meetings were held at the Mandarin Hotel, the locale of
Blumenthal’s iconic Dinner restaurant.
Earlier that year, Blumenthal had met with Breville in Sydney and a
partnership was struck. Heston and Breville are perfect companions.
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Together works: How great relationships get great results
Perfect Fusion
MBA became an extension
of our sales and marketing
department – their knowledge
of the local market and the
digital nature of building this
brand was essential.
David Gubbin - Sage Sales and Marketing Director
They both get food science. They both go to extraordinary lengths
to make exquisite tastes. Heston is more than a name slapped on
a product – he shares the same philosophy and is involved in the
design process, where he will only agree to endorse the select Sage
products that he believes are fit for his kitchens.
The chef’s name and fame gives Sage similar cache to that which
Breville enjoys in its homeland, yet just as pivotal to UK success so
far is the part played by its UK agency, MBA.
“We pitched to MBA rather than the other way round,” recalls David
Gubbin Sage sales and marketing director. “We came [to the UK]
with poor research and little money, without the luxury of time.
We were presenting to retailers in the October for a May launch.”
He adds: “We didn’t know anything about the UK consumer, who
acts totally different to any other market we are in.” UK shoppers,
he says, are much more likely to purchase over the internet than in
Australia and the US.
Gubbin Says, “On board as the brand’s UK agency from Day One,
MBA became an extension of our sales and marketing department
– their knowledge of the local market and the digital nature of
building this brand was essential.”
If part one was reaching the retailers and persuading them to stock
Sage at a profitable level then part two was about creating
a consumer buzz around the new brand.
Images. Sage’s Instagram – MBA re-posts content
created by real-life brand ambassadors and customers.
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Together works: How great relationships get great results
Perfect Fusion
We call ourselves ‘food thinkers’.
People want to get excited about
food and thinking about food.
David Gubbin - Sage Sales and Marketing Director
The agency coupled its UK-specific knowledge of the changing
nature of today’s buyers to Breville’s central brand tenets, which
also infuse the Sage brand.
Images. VVloggers review Sage products on YouTube, key
to MBA’s strategy of influencing the purchase decision.
MBA managing director Paul Munce says, “Our sweet spot is
where digital and direct interconnect and we were perfectly poised
to develop a content marketing framework to reflect purchasing
in today’s digital world.” Needing to launch in the UK’s highly
established market without major advertising investment, Sage
adopted Google’s Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) philosophy of
purchasing as the framework for its activities. It stimulates interest
in the product in social spaces and feeds engaging content into
Sage’s social channels for the “research phase” – the ZMOT – of
the journey when the customer is working out what to buy. This
is where the social collateral comes into its own, and through
engaging content, prompts the customer.
At the core is a philosophy of ‘simple moments of brilliance’ –
products have to be better, faster, simpler and/or more engaging
before they make the grade. Products might look great, but they
need to perform better – to exceed expectations. It’s why, despite
their high price tags, many consumers who buy one hero product
will often go on to buy others in the range. At the core of the Sage
brand is a philosophy
“We call ourselves ‘food thinkers’,” says Gubbin. “People want to
get excited about food and thinking about food.”
Ellypear: OMG. The excitement!! This is enough to
get you out of bed of a morning. I’m going to eat
SO MUCH TOAST now we’ve got our flash new @
sageappliances toaster #toast #toaster #toasterama
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Together works: How great relationships get great results
Perfect Fusion
The way people buy these days has
changed, so the question was how
do we be there when they are looking
so that we can influence them.
Paul Munce - MBA Managing Partner
Sage launched in Spring 2013, infiltrating an already highly
established kitchen gadgets market. This was the first time that
such a full range of electricals, under a new name, would be
launched. As such – and with a tight budget – agency and client
knew that a traditional big brand launch would be both financially
impossible and the wrong strategy for a new world.
Armed with MBA’s insight, Breville knew that the British customer
shops for such products online, viewing and reviewing all the information to hand – from brand-led communications to vlogger reviews
and independent star-ratings and comment on the likes of Amazon.
MBA managing partner Paul Munce elaborates: “The way people
buy these days has changed, so the question was, how do we be
there when they are looking so that we can influence them? We
created content to answer people’s enquiries.”
Film is a powerful medium for food related topics. YouTube is
often a first point of call (or at least the call shortly after Google
searching) for people to find out about products and recipes.
To speak to the inquisitorial nature of today’s consumer MBA
uses Heston in ‘research’ phase content e.g. YouTube product
demonstrations. Complementing this are a series of ‘how to’
demonstrations with a product expert to help customers get the
most out of their product post-purchase.
The agency targets real life ambassadors – the bloggers and
vloggers who are both influential and knowledgeable, sending
them appliances to review independently. Some of the vloggers
that Sage is now working with pull in over 500,000 views per
video, whilst dwell time on its own YouTube channel has been
impressive – the majority of viewers watch at least 70 per cent
Images. Above – Heston Blumenthal, at the centre of video content critical to success, gives
demonstrations on how to use products. Below – Heston pops out of tea vending machine in busy
London shopping centre, as part of viral social object.
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Together works: How great relationships get great results
of each video, , creating further (and independent) content that
customers will come across in their research phase.
“We need to go to their worlds rather than try to grab them into
our world,” says Gubbin.
Perfect Fusion
Carrie Landeryou From today time will be
measured as BW & AW...Before Waffle &
After Waffle! Thanks @SageAppliances &
@TheHestonTeam
Adds Munce: “It’s building the brand from the ground up.” The
strategy works because the products are great.
Content alone, though, isn’t enough – MBA utilises social media
to seed it and cross-populates videos and images across social
platforms. It also takes the brand into the real world, again
supported by social.
One example is #TalkTeaWithHeston - to launch Sage’s tea maker,
MBA devised social stunt #TalkTeaWithHeston – the chef popped
out of a tea-vending machine at London’s Westfield shopping centre,
followed by a series of video content including interviews with
Blumenthal that went viral. Tea maker sales have increased by 21%.
The brand has also engaged with London’s hipster coffee
community by staging latte artist events in independent coffee
shops – an example of how real world events can spawn social
conversations across Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook.
#JuiceLove
Australian juicer Joe Cross
is something of a phenomenon
in wellness circles. The author,
filmmaker and wellness advocate
was overweight and ill when
he started a 60-day juice diet,
documented in the film Fat, Sick &
Nearly Dead. He became a global
Sage juice ambassador (after being
approached by almost a dozen
other companies) because he
believed in the product. Part of the
partnership with Sage would see the
brand promote the UK terrestrial
premier of his Fat, Sick & Nearly
Dead documentary sequel as part
of an integrated campaign around
the health benefits of juicing. PR
around the first Fat, Sick & Nearly
Dead film saw an advertising value
equivalent of £398k through 137
media features. The film, which
aired in 2013 on Channel 5, had
an audience of over 2,000,000 and
in the 24 hours following John
Lewis sold out of juicers. Yet after
Cross’s follow-up film was pulled
from the schedules earlier this year
MBA’s #JuiceLove campaign would
arguably be without its biggest asset
It helps that many of the Sage products tap into people’s passions –
such as the recent trend for juicing and the growing home demand
for barista-style coffee.
Between them, agency and brand have developed a low-cost, high
conversation communications strategy that speaks directly to the
consumer – echoing precisely the no-nonsense, straight-talking
approach they have built together. It’s a vastly different approach
to that taken by Breville in other markets, and one which may yet
inform the company’s global communications moving forward.
“The world that head office lives in is very different to that in the UK
and we have had to prove that this is right for us now,” says Gubbin.
This is one recipe for success that looks set to continue. A wise
campaign indeed. ■
– that prime terrestrial TV airtime.
No matter, #JuiceLove went social:
the campaign was hosted on Sage’s
website, a microsite and across Cross’s
UK platforms; it appeared across
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and
more. The idea was simple – to ask
juicers to share their juicing success
stories. The best ones would win
juicers and recipe books for a loved
one – juicing fans would become real
advocates and inspiration for their
friends. Juicer unit sales increased by
11% during the promotion period and
even afterwards stayed above the prepromotion sales level.
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