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Green & Black’s – How Sampling Put Them on the Road to Success
Another great takeaway from the Business Excellence Forum in Telford
Green and Black’s is a well-known brand, synonymous with high-quality chocolate products. But to get to this point, as a new strand for the brand Whole Earth, the founders had to overcome many marketing obstacles. And they did that by using sampling as their main marketing vehicle. What did the brand have to overcome to reach their customer base? And why was sampling the answer?
Overcoming Obstacles
The founders of Green and Black’s, Josephine Fairley and Craig Sams, realised that they had an uphill struggle to get their fair trade, organic chocolate products recognised in the mass marketplace.
- A very competitive marketplace dominated by the few – to break into the confectionery market in the UK and across the globe is no mean feat. Dominated by large well-established brands – Cadbury’s and Nestle, for example – the lion’s share of the market is swallowed by them. Other brands remain small, unable to compete alongside large marketing budgets and customer loyalty.
- Customer loyalty – customers tend to be loyal when it comes to chocolate and other confectionery. Persuading them to try a new chocolate ‘taste-blind’ is almost impossible. The marketing campaign would take money the start-up didn’t have.
- Good quality chocolate was NOT available in the UK – but again, telling people the chocolate they were eating was not the best would be a futile exercise.
- Poor reputation – back in 1991 when Green and Black’s was founded, anything that was labelled ‘organic’ or fair trade didn’t always get the best press. It was still seen as gimmicky, a fad that brands were trying to get customers to buy into.
- Health implications – at a time when other brands were reducing or replacing sugar in their chocolate with sweetener, Green and Black’s bucked the trend by balancing the bitter 70% cocoa solids of their chocolate products with sugar. This meant that many supermarkets and outlets would not give them shelf space.
The Solutions
Green and Black’s is now an established chocolate brand in the UK and beyond, enjoying the fruits of investment by Cadbury’s. But before this, they seemed to pop up from nowhere.
But like many other start-ups, it was about playing the long game. The founders, Fairley and Sams, realised what the main obstacles were. And so they came up with the marketing solution that worked: product sampling.
They realised that the biggest hurdle that faced them was the fact that people needed to taste their product to appreciate it. This way, they would understand the quality and begin to build a sense of taste loyalty to Green and Black’s, and what the brand was trying to do in terms of high-quality cocoa solids in their chocolate from a sustainable, reputable source.
It worked!
As well as offering product sampling – this became the norm of their marketing campaigns for all their products, including ice cream and other chocolate products – they harnessed the taste buds of some of the most influential food writers in the business.
As product sampling started to turn the tide, their profit started to climb too. But they didn’t leave sampling behind. They moved it up a notch. Free chocolate samples accompanied adverts in magazines as well as their brand being highly visible at all kinds of shows, events and community outlets.
Collaboration, not cut-throat advertising
Product sampling fed into the Green and Black’s branding perfectly. Everything it did was of the highest quality – every product sampling campaign at every event. it also helped that their product was also delicious and sought after.
Product sampling is not about ‘giving stuff away for free’. It’s about creating an experience with a potential customer. And when this experience is the right one, they buy. Green and Black’s is proof of that. To read more about the Green and Black’s story click here!
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