Background:

MuscleFood.com is an online healthy food retailer who first approached us in 2014 as a young start up ready to disrupt the market. In the early days, the brand's core customers were gym goers and fitness enthusiasts looking for lean, protein rich meats at affordable prices. However, they quickly identified a new audience when money conscious families began buying their meat hampers due to their quality, convenience and affordability.

Over the years the brand evolved to include a diet and fitness plan, celebrity product ranges, and a healthy ready meal range as well as focusing on the core product range of lean, high protein meats at prices customers could afford – and we were with them every step of the way to becoming a £100m company.

The brand grew quickly with PR playing a key role in its success. In 2017 it secured £10million worth of investment following a B2B campaign telling the story of the brand and its founder.

In 2023, MuscleFood.com  tasked us with launching its new Prepped Pots ready meal range to UK media, while also beginning to establish the brand in Ireland and reintroduce it to Northern Ireland following a post-Brexit pause. At the same time, we needed to maintain a steady stream of coverage for its core products and its diet and fitness programme.

Despite MuscleFood already being a well-known name in the UK press, both food and home delivery are saturated markets, so we needed to work closely with the team to create campaigns that genuinely cut through the noise.

The goal was all about brand awareness and putting MuscleFood in  front of lapsed, existing, and new customers. Securing strong links from high-authority media sites was an added bonus.

Strategy:

The campaign was multi-layered with four core elements, two of which were new focus areas in 2023. 

• NEW Prepped Pots launch - this needed to have an impact with the core audience of time poor shoppers looking for a convenient and healthy ready meal.
• NEW Ireland and Northern Ireland launch in October 2023 - this was the first time MuscleFood would have a presence in Ireland and a relaunch in Northern Ireland post Brexit.
• Core MuscleFood brand 
• Goal Plans diet and fitness programme

Careful planning was essential, with the core MuscleFood brand campaign taking centre stage and the Goal Plans diet and fitness programme, Prepped Pots, and the new country launches feeding into it.

Having worked with the brand for many years, we understood what the press would respond to and how to position each element effectively. Every strand had its own core audience, so it was crucial that we targeted the publications and platforms they were most likely to read, see, or listen to.

Once those were identified, we used various tactics to reach them and put the MuscleFood brand in front of them:

• Media relations - creating content relevant to the campaign, ranging from advice on cooking on a budget, to tips on how to store and preserve food.
• Case studies - telling the customer story has always been central to successful PR for MuscleFood including case studies on families saving cash and cooking multiple meals with a MuscleFood hamper to those transforming their health and fitness by following the diet and fitness plans.
• Product samples - reaching out to journalists offering samples allowed us to put the product in their hands so they could see and taste  for themselves the quality of the product.
• Competitions - we ran competitions with major publications offering readers the opportunity to win a hamper or a range of prepped, healthy ready meals for the Prepped Pots range.
• The MuscleFood story - for press in Ireland and Northern Ireland there was an additional B2B element, telling the business story around the launch.
• Reactive PR - reacting to news stories and lifestyle content, pitching the MuscleFood team as experts.

The MuscleFood team also engaged with and worked with influencers to elevate the brand messaging further. Collaboration was key and we worked closely to achieve the goals of the various campaigns over a 12 month period. 

Results:

Over a 12 month period (2023) we achieved 1,139 items of coverage with 2,041 links into the relevant websites:

• Core MuscleFood campaign: 778 coverage items and 1,569 links
• Goal Plans: 27 coverage items and 57 links
• Prepped Pots: 306 coverage items and 397 links
• Ireland and Northern Ireland launch: 28 coverage items and 18 links

Among the highlights:

• Daily Mirror, DR 89
• Metro, DR 88
• Newsletter, DR 71
• Business Plus, DR 62
• Huffington Post, DR 90
• Liverpool Echo, DR 80
• Daily Star, DR 81‍
• The Sun, DR 89

Client Award Recognition (submitted by us):

• Grocer Gold Award for Specialist Online Food Retailer of the Year 2018
• Grocer New Product Award, Chilled Savoury Category, 2018
  
• Grocer New Product Award, Ready Meals Category, 2019
• Grocer Gold Award for Specialist Online Food Retailer of the Year 2019 (Finalist).

Agency Award Recognition:

• Corporate and Business Communications Campaign, CIPR Pride Midlands Awards 2018, Silver Award Winner
• Low Budget Campaign, CIPR Pride Midlands Awards 2018, Silver Award Winner
• Consumer Relations Campaign, CIPR Pride Midlands Awards 2019, Finalist
• Healthcare Campaign, CIPR Pride Midlands Awards 2019, Finalist
• Best Use of Media Relations Award, CIPR Pride Midlands Awards 2019, Finalist
• Consumer Relations Award, PRCA Dare Midlands Awards, 2019 Finalist
• Media Relations Award, PRCA Dare Midlands Awards, 2019 Finalist
• Low Budget Award, PRCA Dare Midlands Awards, 2019 Finalist.

Client feedback:

Darren Beale, Musclefood.com founder:

Motive has been key to MuscleFood’s growth by consistently delivering national media coverage and links. These guys never run out of ideas and can be trusted to deliver.