Big Tick winner

innocent drinks – Supergran Campaign

Cause Related Marketing Award 2007 supported by the Office of the Third Sector within the Cabinet Office

I have really enjoyed making the hats. I suffer from osteoporosis and sometimes I am unable to leave my home as often as I would like to, but knitting these hats help me keep my mind off my problems.

A keen knitter

An army of knitters and 230,000 little woolly hats increased sales of innocent smoothies whilst raising vital funds to help keep older people warm over the winter months.

Processes

innocent Drinks is a UK-based company founded in 1998.  Its primary business is producing premium smoothies and flavoured spring water, sold in supermarkets, coffee shops and various other outlets nationally as well as in Ireland, Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels and Copenhagen. Innocent has a 69% share of the £169m UK smoothie market and the company sells one million smoothies per week. 

Over 150,000 older people have died since 2000 from cold-related illnesses during the winter months with thousands more having to choose between heating and eating. The ‘Supergran’ campaign sprang from a desire to run a promotion that would drive sales for innocent (manufacturers of natural fruit smoothies) and give something back to the community. The promotion ran simultaneously to Age Concern’s Fight the Freeze campaign which highlighted the plight of older people in winter.

For each woolly hat-wearing smoothie sold in Sainsbury’s stores and Eat Cafes nationwide, innocent gave 50p to Age Concern to fund programmes such as winter warmth measures providing hot meals, room thermometers, warm blankets, safety checking of electric blankets and advice on how to handle rising energy costs for their homes.

The Supergran campaign leveraged the work and resources of four partners, Innocent, Age Concern, J Sainsbury and Eat Cafes. The woolly hats were knitted by local Age Concern users, Sainsbury’s employees, innocent staff and the general public. Age Concern recruited 90 local Age Concerns and over 2,300 knitters, who produced 160,000 hats, over 40,000 more than they had planned, whilst Sainsbury colleagues knitted 21,000.

innocent organised knitting events for partners and consumers alike.  Wool specialists, Rowan, provided all the wool for the knitting kits and in-store knitting activities.

Impact

  • 230,000 little woolly hats were knitted
  • This raised £115k for Age Concern
  • There was a significant increase in sales over a six week period
  • Approximately 55,000 older people in Age Concern centres across the UK benefited from the money raised. Increased funds and resources enabled centres to provide extra services such as helping older people claim warm front grants and funding minibuses to take them shopping.
  • The vibrant campaign generated positive internal team-building, and increased interaction and engagement of consumers.
  • The Supergran campaign resulted in a record-breaking uplift in sales for innocent smoothies, and innocent’s biggest ever week of unit sales in Sainsbury’s. Furthermore the campaign encouraged unprecedented involvement from innocent consumers with over 230,000 hats knitted and £300k worth of PR generated across the campaign.
  • The knitting groups that were established to meet the demand for bobble hats also encouraged older people to get involved and take advantage of support at Age Concern centres, and boosted numbers of younger Age Concern’s campaigners.

See also