Making headway in a crowded market is always a challenge, even when you have the credibility and competitive background of PhD Nutrition. Aspire revitalised the press strategy, brand positioning and PR campaign of PhD Nutrition to shift the perception that it’s a power-based product for gym-goers.
Securing a premium position
PhD Nutrition is one of the premier sports nutrition brands in the UK. It was founded in 2006 by two competitive performance athletes, Jason Rickaby and Mark Bowering, with established histories and credibility within sports nutrition.
As long-term consumers of sports nutrition they had never found a brand with a reason to believe in it, so they set out to create an intelligent and honest UK sports nutrition brand that delivered on taste and performance.
Although PhD Nutrition had a loyal customer base in a niche market, it struggled to get wider currency in the consumer market. The brand was perceived as a ‘gym-based product’ only used by serious power athletes.
Aspire’s role was to grow awareness of the brand and its products by engaging in a full PR and press strategy. The aim was to secure credible, premium positioning for the brand, communicate its point of difference and deliver maximum exposure and ROI.
Activating a targeted PR and brand strategy
We immediately set to work to overhaul PhD Nutrition’s PR and media strategy to coincide with its new product launches.
Our objective was to take the PhD Nutrition products and brand experts to the media and influencers, as well as implementing ongoing product seeding programmes.
To kick off the strategy we used a 360-degree campaign involving brand ambassadors. We targeted a whole range of health, fitness and lifestyle titles and bloggers with PR activities including:
- media tours and press briefings
- fully integrated media launch
- comprehensive PR platform and delivery
We also worked with brand ambassadors such as Olympic Gold medallist boxer Luke Campbell to highlight the benefits of PhD Nutrition for maximum performance.
Getting across the brand message
72m
in press coverage readership
55
event and desk-side briefings
50k
media reach
Helping PhD Nutrition achieve clear cut-through
Our co-ordinated PR and press strategy delivered a significant growth in brand awareness in key health, fitness, sport and lifestyle titles. The campaign achieved 72 pieces of coverage over 10 months across print and online.
We organised over 20 face-to-face meetings with target media, 55 event and desk-side briefings (across three product ranges) and invited 30 influencers and media representatives to the media launch event.
The targeted strategy delivered clear cut-through in brand positioning against PhD Nutrition’s competitors and a clear differentiation in key markets.
By working closely with the brand ambassadors and building on the credibility in the world of sports performance, we positioned the brand as knowledge leaders and increased its perception as a ‘go to’ brand in sports nutrition.
For more information on the full range, visit www.phd-supplements.com.
