Soda Folk appointed us as their first ever full-service agency partner to review all brand communications (from advertising to packaging), advise on sales and distribution strategy and, importantly, help them tell their unique story better to a wider audience. The objective being to increase listings and uplift sales across all channels. Simple?

Given the competitiveness of the soft-drinks sector and the size and scale of brands that dominate it globally - not just domestically, gaining shelf and mind space for a new entrant with limited resource was going to be a challenge.

Whilst the brand had an interesting origin story and was committed to using authentic ingredients to provide genuine taste, these values alone were not enough to cut through. The brand needed a very clear and distinctive ESP (emotional selling proposition), over and above product appeal, that larger, more established brands could not claim and so create a genuine point of difference to earn shelf-space with retailers, and a place in the fridge of consumers.

Working in partnership with the client we undertook a ‘deep dive’ to get completely under the skin of the company. This enabled us to devise a new positioning and a revolutionary new approach that covered all aspects of the marketing mix - from flavour development to naming and promotion.

From our work, two key strategic strands emerged to form one message:

Provenance: Soda Folk was the only soda that could claim it was made with authentic ingredients with genuine provenance. (Ingredients for American Root beer came from the United States and the apples for French Apple Spritz came from France.)

Good Deeds: We devised a very ‘human’ positioning for the brand, building it around the central proposition of ‘Good Soda, Good Folk, Good Deeds’.

We told the story of Soda Folk ‘Heroes’ whereby the public could nominate anyone who they felt had done good for their local community and see them immortalised as a Soda Folk character or ‘Hero’ on the side of a can. In addition, a percentage of future profits would be allocated to the Soda Folk charitable foundation which would continue to support proposed good causes on a local basis.

Not only was Soda Folk’s online presence not doing the brand justice, importantly, it wasn’t capable of selling product online. This became a critical issue in 2019/20 when national lockdowns caused by the COVID pandemic severely limited consumers’ ability to ON-TRADE. This had a profound and immediate effect on sales which the client asked us to help them resolve. Working quickly, to extraordinarily tight deadlines, we designed and built a fully functioning e-commerce website which quickly became the brand’s primary sales channel during the pandemic – playing a major role in the short-term survival and ultimate success of the business.

By working as a proactive partner with the business, we were able to develop a unique positioning for the brand, improve relationships with key-trade buyers, acquire new customers and a legion of new fans, all of which led to unprecedented sales growth of 350% - despite a series of national lockdowns – and all in less than 18 months!