Learn how Lamb Weston tripled its number of qualified leads through social

Find out how Art of the Possible Agency helped Lamb Weston win for best product launch campaign and the major prize of our awards night – the Grand Prix.

About the client company/agency

If you’ve ever enjoyed the golden fries in McDonald’s, the triple-cooked wonders served in Gourmet Burger Kitchen or LEON, you’ve experienced a Lamb Weston Meijer potato product. As the second largest producer of potato products in the world, Lamb Weston Meijer leads the way in chip innovation and seeing the possibilities in potatoes. 

Lamb Weston Meijer serves the EMEA region and is based in the Netherlands, supplying frozen potato products such as chips, Twisters, Potato Dippers and Connoisseur Fries to the Food service industry. The business is a merger between a Dutch company founded in 1920 by Cees Meijer, and a US grower called F. Gilbert Lamb, who opened his first processing company in 1950, Lamb Weston.

Strategy – broader business issues the company is facing

Proprietary research carried out across the UK showed a gap in the dining out market for a really good quality pub chip. Art of the Possible Agency orchestrated in-depth interviews and focus groups, market data analysis, as well as several rounds of product testing in order to identify the strongest opportunity for its new product.

The traditional British chip is a key component to 73% of all dining out-of-home occasions! The business saw an opportunity in the market to produce a really good, home-made looking, thick cut chip with a golden colour variation that was crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

The target audience was the mainstream British pub segment.

Objectives of the campaign

Built on clear consumer and customer insights around the necessity for high quality, locally sourced, traditional pub chips, Art of the Possible Agency built a strategy that dialled up the provenance and authenticity of the product. Art of the Possible Agency communicated with foodservice customers as consumers and engaged with them in a much more evocative and emotional way – telling an appealing story that stood out against competitors. 

The language used was playful, traditional, fun, with a strong personality, which gave a real warmth to the brand and evoked a sense of heritage and British unity – tapping into a feeling of nostalgia and supporting the role of the British pub. This really appealed to its target audience and created an immediate sense of loyalty with its customers. The Britishness was not the only product USP, but it was an anchor to increase value for restaurant owners and to differentiate against competition on the high street.

The target audience

Lamb Weston works with Wholesalers, QSR, pubs and casual dining restaurants. Within these organisations, their customers are buyers, operators, chefs and menu developers who want to be in control of their business, time and resources. The challenges in communicating with this audience is that they are extremely time poor; often operate at unusual times of day (for example post-midnight after service); and in addition, you really need to speak their ‘language’ in order to gain any traction. Built on clear consumer and customer insights around the necessity for high quality, locally sourced, traditional pub chips, Art of the Possible Agency built a strategy that dialled up the provenance and authenticity of the product.  Art of the Possible Agency communicated with foodservice customers as consumers and engaged with them in a much more evocative and emotional way – telling an appealing story that stood out against competitors.

Media, channels or techniques used

Art of the Possible Agency chose to prioritise live events and social (Insta) as two key channels. This was for four reasons:

Live:

1. Its product looks and tastes amazing. Therefore, when Art of the Possible Agency had the opportunity to get the cooked product into its customer’s hands, it sells itself

2. It sold through wholesale distribution and a key opportunity to engage with this audience is at trade events

Social: 3.

In terms of targeting its chefs, they are strong users of social media – especially Instagram as creative and visual people

4. With regards to Lamb Weston public and and operator customers, digital is a growing medium, and they are looking to innovative businesses like Lamb Weston’s to lead the way.

The media mix included: 

• PR 
• Organic social @lambweston_uk 
• Paid social (FB & Insta) 
• Events 
• Website 
• Digital page takeovers of relevant sites e.g. BAR Magazine and EDM 

Timescales of the campaign 

• 
  April 2019:
  
  Market analysis and start of NPD creation 
• 
  June 2019:
  
  Agency Pitch 
• 
  August 2019:
  
  First line trial in its plant in Wisbech 
• 
  September 2019:
  
  Consumer Research 
• 
  October 2019:
  
  Launch planning and final approval of NPD & Press event under embargo, photo shoot 
• 
  Nov – Dec 2019:
  
  Development of skin on SKU 
• 
  November 2019:
  
  Creative Development 
• 
  December 2019:
  
  Asset Creation and Media Buying 
• 
  January – March2020:
  
  Launch (test & learn & optimisation continuously throughout)
• 
  Feb 2020:
  
  Breakfast Awards 
• 
  Feb 2020:
  
  Pub20 tradeshow Monthly reporting analysis and campaign assessment April 2020.

Results 

Key KPIs: 

• Lead Gen/sales: the core objective was to sell 200 tonnes of Dukes within the first 3 months of launch. After two  months Lamb Weston was performing 200% up on the original, with 400+ tonnes of product sold within two months of launch! 
• Lamb Weston was targeted with 500 clicks on the website per week (double the global Lamb Weston traffic), and it achieved over 4,000 clicks on the website within the first 4 weeks, and this number continued to grow throughout the 3-month campaign – culminating in c.1,000 per week 
• It was focusing on quality leads on Instagram not quantity, with a target of 200 sales leads generated in the three-month period. Lamb Weston had 454 leads via Instagram in the first 3 months 
• Lamb Weston had a KPI of email open rates (high) at 10% and the key eDM had an amazing 47.6% open rate, and a click through rate of 29%