Developing a strategy & plan - Spoon Cereals

Spoon Cereals is an ambitious start-up granola brand with backing from Dragon's Den investors Deborah Meaden and Peter Jones. The founders, Annie Morris and Jonny Shimmin, asked me to help them distill their many marketing and communications ideas and develop an actionable plan to work to over the next 12 months.

I led several workshops with the founders to draw out all their ideas and agree how to position Spoon as a lifestyle brand - clean, healthy, fresh, confident and focussed on quality. I made recommendations on how to develop the Spoon story about Annie and Jonny’s passion, their business journey and ambitions and create a tone of voice.

I reviewed their branding, packaging, event strategy, social media activity and connections with influencers. We carried out detailed research into the UK breakfast market and competitive granola brands to identify where Spoon should fit in the marketplace and how they should position their messaging to make their product stand out and raise awareness of their brand outside their London heartland.

When I started working with Spoon in September 2015 the products were only available in a number of independent retailers in London including Daylesford and Harvey Nichols but a launch in Ocado and 120 Sainsbury's stores was in the pipeline for November. With these major launches Spoon needed to work out how to punch above their weight in the crowded breakfast cereal market.

As a result of my involvement Spoon have a detailed marketing strategy to share with their funders and buyers and a detailed communications plan their small team can work to on a daily basis.

I hope that in 2016 there will have the opportunity to work with Spoon Cereals again as their business grows.