Nature Nate's Honey Drives Growth in Northeast
Nature Nate's Honey Co. invested in a large-scale campaign last fall to increase its market share in the Northeast U.S.
The omnichannel effort was deployed by agency Blue Chip and included online, in-store and offsite advertising. The three-month campaign ended on Dec. 1, 2024.
"Nate's has always believed in the power of brand awareness," says Becca May, senior vice president of marketing at Nature Nate's. "Brilliant, bold creative paired with sophisticated implementation is how we continue to grow household penetration in the honey category."
The No. 1 barrier to the purchase of honey is that consumers forget about it, according to a National Honey Board study. The study notes once consumers use honey, it becomes their favorite sweetener.
Nature Nate's launched the "Ingredients: Honey" campaign in January 2021 after development with creative agency Poke the Bear. It reminded consumers of honey with punchy one-liners placed on Nature Nate's signature bright orange.
Blue Chip last fall leveraged creative from the "Ingredients: Honey" campaign to drive consumers to purchase product in key retailers across Boston, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and other New England areas. The retailers included:
- Ahold Delhaize's The Giant Co. and Stop & Shop
- Albertsons Cos.' Acme and Shaw's
- Market Basket
- ShopRite
Informed by AI and machine learning models, consumers saw Nate's ads in digital channels before their next shopping trip. Display ads were shown to targeted consumers in digital channels, including recipe sites and other third-party sites frequently used by the consumers. Nature Nate's additionally supported the campaign with paid social media ads. AdAdapted and InMarket, the campaign's other media partners, both used AI to engage category shoppers with Nature Nate's media and messaging.
Shoppers encountered geo-targeted digital out-of-home ads throughout their daily routines and en route to the retailers. As they entered the stores, they received digital ads and push notifications on their mobile devices. While in-store, shelf talkers positioned next to Nature SKUs with "Nate’s Honey tastes better" messaging also vied for shoppers' attention.
To round out the campaign, Blue Chip ran Nature Nate's ads at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. A cumulative audience of more than 1.3 million attended multiple sporting events and music concerts while the ads ran at the center.
For their first time working together, Nature Nate's and Blue Chip began development of the campaign during spring 2024.
Blue Chip used its proprietary MarketMatch tool (created in 2023) to identify the greatest opportunity markets using an algorithmic machine learning process, says Erich Parker, senior vice president, integrated media at Blue Chip. Another Blue Chip tool called Thread used AI to identify and optimize campaigns, helping to quickly identify growth drivers across the campaigns. Blue Chip created Thread in 2019.
"Nate's took the category lead and has become a mainstay in retailers across the country by building a fan base that doesn’t just see honey as a commodity but loves pure, raw and unfiltered honey for its quality and taste," Parker says. "We're continuing that approach with a highly targeted campaign that provides integrated, multi-channel support for major retailers in key markets. That's the key to driving effectiveness and power in creative commerce."