Case study: How Wasabi uses Tracksuit to keep its short and long-term brand strategy on track

Annabel Stephens, Grocery Marketing Manager at WasabiOpens in new tab, discusses the value of tracking brand health over time and how the right tools can help with everything from decision-making to validating and refining marketing campaigns.

If you ever have a craving for tasty Asian cuisine, Wasabi's meals will definitely hit the spot. Wasabi is a UK-founded company (with stores in the US too!) known for sushi and hot bento. Its story started with a stall in Camden Market over 20 years ago, everything made with tasty, authentic ingredients. Today that passion for delicious Asian food remains, whether it's served in their restaurants, or through their range of meals to enjoy at home or work.

Wasabi meals can be found in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Co-op and more recently Morrisons.

That being said, anyone who's walked through the food section of a grocery store knows just how crowded the market can be. Wasabi, being a relatively new brand in the ready meal realm, must maintain consistent and strong messaging to stand out and resonate with consumers.

Let's look at how the brand is doing just that.

Nailing Wasabi's key brand messaging 🎯

The first step to establishing a strong brand is nailing your brand messaging and positioning. In Wasabi's case, this is all about highlighting the delicious Asian flavours and convenience that set its products apart from competitors.

"We pride ourselves on the flavour and convenience of our products. We want every product within the range to have that Wasabi punch, and be flavourful, particularly versus the other meals that you can get in store," says Annabel.

The team has validated this messaging internally and found that flavour and convenience are the biggest drivers for grocery shoppers' purchasing of ready-made meals.

Using brand tracking to ensure Wasabi's marketing is on point 📈

With clear messaging in place, Wasabi needed to ensure that its brand identity translated into the market. This is where a tool like Tracksuit comes in because it helps them validate whether or not the brand's initiatives are working.

According to Annabel, Tracksuit helps the brand determine if Wasabi's messaging is hitting the market with its target audience.

"Being able to track that and understand if we're delivering on our key messages is crucial. We're also starting to set objectives and KPIs, particularly focusing on awareness."

What sets Tracksuit apart is the platform's simplicity and visual-driven interface, which makes surfacing the right data a breeze.

"It's easy to have access to so much data that you don’t end up using it to inform decision-making. However, with Tracksuit, the dashboard is extremely easy to use. You can see how you're converting down the funnel, check what statements you're delivering against what you set out to do. You can also look at the timeline and understand, over the year, if you're driving awareness and consideration with your campaigns."

She says that having that intuitive method for validating Wasabi's messaging lets them know if they're on the right track, which then leads to more informed decision-making and helps in refining future campaigns.

The good news? Wasabi's marketing initiatives are working.

The brand has seen a 6% lift in brand awareness since December 2023, which can be attributed, in part, to Wasabi's focused and consistent messaging across all channels.

A successful foray into influencer marketing 🤝

Another initiative that contributed to Wasabi's lift in brand awareness is its influencer campaign, which involved partnering with influencers who aligned with the brand's values and target consumer.

"We ran our first-ever influencer campaign in April. We worked with foodie influencers who talked about the benefits of our product, again focusing on flavour and convenience messaging."

The campaign, which ran solely on Instagram, allowed Wasabi to garner social proof and reach new audiences that were previously unfamiliar with the brand.

What's great about the initiative is that Wasabi gave influencers a fairly open brief and allowed them to show up as their authentic selves. The brand's only ask was for the influencers' content to remain consistent with Wasabi's core messaging and value proposition. This approach allowed influencers to create authentic content while still staying true to what Wasabi represents.

The importance of staying the course 🛣️

Wasabi's initiatives are a masterclass on executing focused and consistent brand messaging. Regardless of which channel Wasabi chooses, the messaging remains aligned with the brand's core value proposition.

Annabel shares that it can be tempting to change things up too often to keep things fresh. However, Wasabi understands the value of sticking to proven messaging that resonates with its audience.

"It's easy in marketing to feel pressure to have a new creative for every campaign, but we know consistency drives recall and brand recognition."

With that, Tracksuit helps validate this approach by providing data that confirms the effectiveness of its messaging strategy.

As Annabel puts it, "Tracksuit drives those conversations, allowing us to say, 'Well what we're doing is working. We don't always need to rip up the creative idea and start again.'"

In line with that, Annabel and the team use Tracksuit's brand health timeline to assess the impact of specific marketing activities and adjust their strategies accordingly.

"The timeline is valuable because we can go in and see when those activities occurred during the year and determine how our KPIs are tracking after those activities."

Better conversations with leadership ✨

Beyond informing Wasabi's marketing initiatives, Annabel finds Tracksuit helpful in demonstrating the tangible results and effectiveness of her marketing strategies to leadership.

"Now that we're using Tracksuit, I'm sharing it more within the business so that we're all speaking the same language regarding brand tracking."

Moreover, this shared understanding extends to internal reviews, where brand growth objectives are clearly defined and measurable.

"We’ve set KPIs for growing the brand across the funnel over the next year. These targets will be tracked ongoing and will help us to justify future advertising investments based on previous performance”.