A Delectable Debut: Strategic Production Partner Sparks Game Changing Brand Transformation
Premium food and beverage brand, Edible® underwent a major transformation in 2023. Founded in 1999, the Atlanta-based business formerly known as Edible Arrangements is well-known for their fresh fruit and gourmet chocolate-dipped arrangements, with 800+ stores worldwide. Approaching its 25th year brought forth an opportune moment for the brand to launch a new elevated look and feel. Orchestrated by CMO, Kevin Keith, the monumental reboot and “coming out” for the new brand was facilitated by strategic production partner, HONE.
Reintroducing a big name like Edible to the market is a significant undertaking for any in-house team. Having spent the year building a new marketing department, new brand positioning, and complete overhaul of the brand’s ‘Visual Identity System’, Kevin welcomed HONE's production expertise with open arms.
“We had initial ideas from our in-house team and knew we needed to produce a lot of content,” Kevin tells me. “HONE had shared their credentials and it was clear they played nice in the sandbox with internal creatives, so we knew our team could lean on them to increase their experience making content. I was interested in seeing HONE’s way of working: approaching each project with production at the forefront to ensure the most efficient path forward.We had two completely different content needs - one very tactical but with many pieces, and the other conceptual followed by execution and oversight - but we were confident HONE would curate the right talent, manage the process, and provide options of ways of working for both workstreams."
The first task at hand centred around building evergreen and fall content to fill lower funnel needs as part of the brand’s relaunch campaign. Leading the creative execution and oversight, HONE became embedded within Edible’s internal teams as strategic production partner. Co-head of production and owner of HONE, Matt Mattingly, reveals how they explored their trusted creative partner network to find the right team to jump in, creating the best content production plan to answer the brief and business needs. “Talent and experience was of course considered but also history of working with in-house teams. Being comfortable working alongside in-house creative teams requires a certain maturity and business understanding."
The scale of the project was vast and HONE employed their trademark production-first approach to ensure the business problem was solved but also considering timing and budget. The solution - take a stop motion approach to yield 16 key video stop motion assets that turned into 400+ assets for digital and social use.
Almost in parallel, Edible also briefed HONE to concept and execute a new brand campaign delivering big broadcast work and social content to build brand awareness around the new positioning and personality.
HONE supplemented Edible's in-house team by bringing on two creative directors who could work fast, play nice with internal teams to onboard quickly, and had an understanding of concepting against a production brief due to time and budget constraints. HONE got to work with the custom curated “seal team”. Matt adds, “It was a super fast sprint for concepting, but we were able to accomplish it because Edible had provided us with all the information ahead of time.”
HONE's bespoke tight-knit team's experience in creative execution and strategic production acted as a crucial bolt-on to the in-house talent. “Most external partners are hesitant to collaborate with in-house teams, but HONE’s approach was refreshingly collaborative and integrated, allowing the brand experts’ (us) input in a hands-on approach where applicable,” says Kevin. The output was above and beyond what was initially scoped - finding efficiencies along the way. The campaign deliverables consisted of 4 very funny spots and over 30 bespoke social and digital videos – not just cutdowns but content made to fit the placement and platforms.
The official launch resulted in Edible achieving a potential reach of more than 2.6MM, not including the press release pickup which generated placement in 400 news outlets with a potential reach of more than 244.6MM. The campaign also ignited a surge in brand awareness, driving over 150,000 incremental searches and boosting site traffic within just six weeks.
Since the relaunch went live, Kevin has reflected on what distinguishes HONE from other strategic production partners. “HONE remained disciplined throughout the process, keeping the business need of the client at the core and adapting to address it versus forcing a “proprietary” agency model to answer all needs.”
Matt credits his team’s ability to assimilate with in-house creative teams, noting how this gives HONE the advantage. “Being involved in the first initial creative conversations with Kevin and his team really paid off. Getting briefed for a project while you are still in the early phases of the first engagement is one of the biggest compliments you can get from a client. Having even a silent role while the in-house team sorts what they are thinking and hearing, those early thoughts help shape the process as a whole. HONE has remained small by design to avoid overwhelming our partners and more frequently be let in the room. As a nimble company, it allows us to be flexible in how we work and who we work with to deliver.”
“Our history of partnering with in-house teams proves we thrive on collaboration and we think of it more as how we compliment the talent and skills of the internal team. No matter what the project is, we put our production-first mentality into practice and operate in a collaborative fashion to guarantee the best possible results.”
