A CREATIVE BLACK FRIDAY CAMPAIGN: GET TO KNOW YOUR INGREDIENTS WITH PROTEIN WORKS
Protein Works doesn’t just make the world’s best shakes. They’re experts in wellbeing and nutrition. In a time when the PR landscape was saturated with Black Friday promotions, we created a campaign that genuinely stood apart by embodying Protein Works’ core values: nutrition expertise and consumer education. Our innovative approach cut through the noise whilst empowering shoppers to make more informed, confident choices.
THE BRIEF & INSIGHT
Protein Works challenged us to develop a Black Friday campaign that would not only engage consumers and differentiate the brand, but also reinforce their commitment to educating consumers about healthy lifestyle choices.
Our campaign was built on a startling insight: 80% of UK adults don’t fully understand food labels. This means the vast majority of consumers have no real understanding of what they’re putting into their bodies. Let’s be honest, how often do we actually read labels? And even when we do, do we truly comprehend what we’re reading? Step in Protein Works.
THE CONCEPT
We helped Protein Works transform Black Friday into a unique educational opportunity that rewarded conscious consumer behaviour. Our campaign posed a provocative question: Would shoppers read product labels if incentivised to do so?
Breaking away from conventional Black Friday tactics, we crafted an innovative shopping experience by:
- Hiding discount codes within product descriptions, available during a special 6 PM to 9 PM window
- Launching a 4-day campaign of riddles across social media to guide consumers to the product and hint that a discount code is hidden on its label.
- Developing a comprehensive suite of social assets for owned channels, including engaging story posts, attention-grabbing videos and striking static imagery
- Leveraging Protein Works own influencer network to share these riddles and drive engagement which were printed and designed on branded cards
This distinctive approach created multiple opportunities for shoppers to engage deeply with products before Black Friday, encouraging them to pause and “get to know” what they would be consuming before making a purchase.
The campaign was further supported by a comprehensive Label Literacy Guide featuring the most commonly searched ingredients, ensuring customers had the tools to both uncover the hidden codes and understand typical ingredient terminology so they were well-informed about the products they aimed to buy before the sales hit.
Strategically, the campaign was designed to generate outreach opportunities both before and after Black Friday. We recognised that if most consumers missed the discount codes in the product descriptions during check out, it would serve as concrete evidence, and a headline in itself, that consumers aren’t reading labels.
THE RESULTS
Our social experiment spanned owned social channels, the brand’s influencer partnerships, and PR initiatives. Traffic to key products surged by an impressive 460% during competition hours, yet results confirmed that consumers still need to read labels more effectively with only 84% spotting the code hidden in the ingredients.
We leveraged these findings through targeted media outreach, securing coverage in several key publications and earning valuable backlinks to the Protein Works website during an otherwise saturated Black Friday period.
