Customer Engagment..

 

We believe that not only is the charitable and sustainable ethos of the company an innovation, but the way they communicate with their customers is vital to their success. If you’ve ever read the back of an Innocent Drinks product, you will always find a comical joke, a fact and a personal invitation to communicate with the company by visiting fruit towers or emailing/phoning. This informal communication strategy is a far cry from the rigid formality large firms normally impose and has created a sense of community for consumers. Innocent use weekly newsletters, social media, packaging and blogs to interact with their customer base in an informal and friendly manner. Innocent Drinks is a brand with a personality; it creates a sense of loyalty and trust that is not found in other competitors within the beverage market.

 

We believe that Innocent has a large lead user base, with lots of active engagement with their customers. One example of this is through their ‘The Big Knit’ campaign where they ask their customers to knit small hats going into the winter months and then send them to Fruit Towers, to be placed on top of their products before going to stores. This is truly an unbelievable ask and demonstrates the connection they have with their consumers. What other food and drink manufacture would ask their consumers to knit hats for the business? Last year over a million hats were donated by customers. The reason behind this campaign is to raise money for the Age UK charity which tries to ensure that the elderly are able to keep warm in the colder months, with 25p of every bottle sold going to Age UK. Celebrities have also got involved and made their own hats, as you can see below each hat is personalised by the consumer and truly different.

 

Another example of customer engagement is Fruitstock/Village Fete which is a festival run by Innocent often in a London Park during the summer involving live music, entertainment, farmers markets and plenty of the Innocent team to meet with the consumers. Established in 2003 with 30,000 people attending, this free event is a great opportunity for the business to engage with its customers on a face-to-face basis which is often unheard of in the industry. This relationship also extends on each bottle of innocent which invites consumers to ‘pop into fruit towers’ and say hello.

 

                                  Fruitstock:                                                                 The Big Knit:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although the Lead Users is not actively manufacturing the product, the consumers still contribute to idea creation and development which Innocent actively listens and adheres to. When they launched Innocent Veg Pots in 2008, they naturally assumed it would be a success for both vegetarian and vegan markets. It was only due to this lead user mentality that caused Innocent to listen to its consumers feedback as they frequently used honey throughout their recipes which alienated the vegan customer base and have since redeveloped the recipe in order to satisfy that market. Hippel (2005) states that lead user innovations should have dual benefits for both the user as well as the company. We believe that although it may cost more in the short term to redevelop a product, it is important that your product meets the needs and wants of the consumer, which in turn will result in more sales.

 

Innocent has an open door policy with customers and encourages feedback through multiple channels. The Rate and Review system that can be found underneath each product on the Innocent website is a simple but effective way of letting Innocent know what the consumer thinks. One of the biggest developments which have come from social media, rate and review and blogs/phones feedback systems is the development of a Banana free smoothie. According to Innocent, this was the single biggest request by the consumer, so they’ve listened and developed a recipe to meet the consumers’ needs, without this feedback loop, Innocent state they never would have created a banana free smoothie.

 

We believe that customer engagement through the social communities that Innocent have created plays a vital role within the company’s success. Becoming a friend to some consumers rather than a corporate identity has yielded strong brand loyalty for their products and has provided a great platform to test new ideas through their communications rather than relying on focus groups. They use this power of communication and friendship to bolster the value of their product, and now the company is no longer just about smoothies but the values and social connections they hold.