Why Ella’s Kitchen will focus marketing efforts on YouTube after pairing with 'One Born Every Minute' team
For the next three years, the marketing efforts of Ella's Kitchen will lean towards YouTube as the organic baby and children's food brand looks to move away from a “campaign” mindset and instead hone its ability to think, and act, like an “always on” publisher, accoring to the brand's marketing boss Celia Huxtable.
Ella's Kitchen has traditionally used TV to drive awareness but was finding it a challenge to engage with the parents that come to the brand every day. It had flirted with an all-encompassing YouTube channel, which housed everything from ads to advice, but as its wider marketing focus on the ‘weaning’ stage of a child’s life came to the fore the brand saw an opportunity to have a more helpful conversation with parents.
“We know from metrics like web engagement and email CTR that when we talk about weaning, mums and dad listen to us,” Huxtable told The Drum.
“If you a have a campaign focus you potentially miss a lot of mums and dads and that opportunity to have a conversation with them.”
The move is reflective of a well-versed shift among brands. Just yesterday, YouTube used an event in London to convince advertisers why they should shift at least a quarter of their TV budgets to the platform. It paid particular attention to why such a move would will help reach the coveted ‘millennial’ audience, but there is also a marked growth in video creation and consumption on the platform among mums.
Ella’s Kitchen’s prioritisation of YouTube among other digital channels - reflective in its marketing budget although Huxtable declined to go into detail – saw it launch a dedicated ‘Weaning’ channel on the platform earlier this year.
It has been slowly been populating it with short films featuring real people giving advice. However, the next – and more substantial stage of this effort- has been the development of a fly on the wall documentary series featuring the families from Channel 4’s hit TV show One Born Every Minute.
Due to an unfortunate restriction, the ‘One Weaned Every Minute’ title had to be canned in favour of ‘Weanagers’ but nonetheless Huxtable is hoping that parents will see it as a series that reflects the individuality of each weaning experience and, by that token, is more accessible that what they might find elsewhere.
“We also want them to see Ella’s Kitchen as innovative,” Huxtable added.
YouTube’s promise of directly linking content to transactions has also piqued the brand’s interest. However, much like other FMCG brands, despite its own e-commerce presence the vast majority of sales continue to come through retailers, leading Huxtable to say that it’s not an immediate priority.
“At this moment [YouTube] is not about direct sales. It’s about brand building. We want to be a partner to mums, not have a direct sales relationship. But I guess never say never.”
The next three years then will see it forge an ever closer partnership with Google and YouTube to better understand the different user types and how it can create content that meets, and targets, those unique user needs.