Chilly’s is going all in on experiential marketing to reverse sales decline

“It’s not about putting our name out there and saying, ‘Please buy a water bottle’. It's about giving people the feeling of, ‘Yeah, I really love Chilly’s because it’s an exciting, fun, and engaging brand and I want to be a part of that.'"

In the past, Chilly’s worked with the creative agency Uncommon producing TV ads such as ’A Reusable Way of Living’, Christmas campaigns, plus a call to major water companies to offer reusable bottles.

VCCP London is now Chilly's lead agency across creative, media, and production. The agency's first campaign is ‘Flip The Ordinary’ which has been created to launch Chilly’s new Series 2 Flip bottle.

Prior to Ford’s appointment, performance marketing was its primary strategy, but “changes in iOS made that much more challenging” for the brand, admits Ford. Chilly’s is beginning to shift investment into experience and awareness marketing, with performance playing less of a role.

“Performance marketing is still important to us and part of our strategy, but whereas before it was the whole strategy now it only plays a part of our strategy and we are now properly full funnel.”

The marketing pivot follows a decline in sales, which have gone from £44.2m in 2020 to £34.5m in 2021 and £28.8m in 2022.

Ford’s first run at a Chilly’s in-person experience was back in November, at a pop-up store on Oxford Street. While it was considered a successful activation, she says the concept could have gone further in getting customers to engage with the brand.

Along with the upcoming ‘House of Flip’ immersive experience in Piccadilly, Chilly’s has released a 15-second hero film that is being positioned as an awareness campaign. Then Ford will use performance marketing for conversion to land the features and benefits once customers have had a chance to engage with the brand elsewhere.

Ford has borrowed learnings from her time at Dyson where she served as head of product strategy. “At Dyson, everything was about the experience, about getting hands-on and demonstrating products. When you’ve got a physical product, if people interact with it they will fall in love with it. It’s much easier to create brand advocates if they can get their hands on it.”

Chilly’s TikTok push

To complement her experience-first strategy, Ford is channeling more investment and time into TikTok, releasing regular videos exclusively created for the platform. “In TikTok, we are able to deliver that experience better as opposed to Facebook and Instagram where people are more just reviewing our content and being an observer. That is why TikTok is a bigger focus for us.”

Ford is also prepping a consistent influencer strategy, which is something Chilly’s has only “dabbled” with in the past for product launches – now it will be an always-on approach.

Marketing Chilly’s as an 'urban active lifestyle’ brand

Chilly’s wants to define itself as an urban active lifestyle brand to stand out in the market. Since Chilly’s launch in 2010, the reusable water bottle market has grown exponentially, with the US market valued at $8.9bn in 2022. There are now hundreds of competitors and even a few Chilly’s knock-offs out there.

For this push, Ford has identified the sneaker market as a prime audience to tap into. Chilly’s has partnered with the sneaker convention Sneakerness UK to run a series of activations at the events and teamed up with a graffiti artist to customize exclusive bottles at the event.

The ambition to be seen as a lifestyle brand is also why Chilly’s has decided not to lead its marketing with sustainability messaging. “We don’t want to be bashing people over the head with sustainability constantly. We want people to buy into reusables because they love the products, not because they feel guilty.”