Case Study: How Blue Frog hopped to it and secured their spot on Australian supermarket shelves using brand tracking insights

Blue Frog brings a little bit of magic to everyone’s day.

Their purpose is to give people a healthy, delicious breakfast worth waking up for. And increasingly, people in both New Zealand and Australia are waking up to Blue Frog Breakfast’s delightful cereals. 

Since being founded by Scotty BaragwanathOpens in new tab in 2015, they have recently expanded across the ditch to take the Australian market by storm, securing a major extension with Woolworths twelve months after they entered the Australian stores with the goal of shaking up the cereal category. 

In Australia, Blue Frog is one of the only premium breakfast option brands who have seen positive movement in Awareness growth, joining only the incumbent brand Carman's Kitchen. Throughout January 2022, Blue Frogs' awareness went from strength to strength, growing by 0.7%. At today's category size of 16.6M, that's an extra 116,199 humans that became aware of Blue Frog Breakfast.

We chatted to marketing manager Madeleine Rose SmartOpens in new tab to hear more about how she’s using Tracksuit insights to crack the Australian market. 

Blue Frog x Tracksuit: Taking a running jump

Blue Frog stands out thanks to their enthusiasm for championing product innovation, bringing epic cereals to supermarket shelves.

“Probiotic granolas, the world’s first probiotic porridge, collagen, hemp, keto cereal – we do it all and nothing is off limits,” Madeleine says. “While never compromising health for taste or taste for health! Meaning our cereals not only taste amazing, they’re good for you too.”

But having an incredible product is only half of the struggle – how do you get people to pop your brand into their trollies – especially when offering a premium staple.

Before tracking their brand, Blue Frog Breakfast relied on sales data from supermarkets, independents and online sales. As Madeleine explains, sales data alone is just numbers – you might be able to see how many people are purchasing your product, but this could be driven by a number of factors, such as price. You have no idea how people view the brand or what they think of the products. 

The only glimpses into what people thought and felt about the brand came through word of mouth and social media. 

“This is tricky as it’s always going to be a bit one-sided as we tend to only hear from people that we know – who are more likely to say good things!”, explains Madeleine.

Having a loyal fan base is great, but for brands to grow, they need to understand what their broader audience thinks of them

It was word of mouth that led Blue Frog to try on Tracksuit.

“We had heard of fellow food and beverage companies using Tracksuit that spoke very highly of the services offered and the larger macro business decisions it has allowed them to make with these insights,” says Madeleine.

In New Zealand, Blue Frog is already well-regarded and well established, so Tracksuit allows them to make improvements to ensure they continue to stay top of mind for their consumers and grow their conversion rate from those who would consider Blue Frog into those who prefer Blue Frog.  

However, over in Australia, Blue Frog Breakfast is still quite fresh to the market. Having deeper insights into how people perceive their brand, especially against competitors, is invaluable for continued growth. It allows Blue Frog Breakfast to see where they stand at different levels to consumers between usage, awareness, consideration.

Being able to see where they were losing and gaining customers helped steer Blue Frog Breakfast’s marketing activity in the right direction. 

Setting the frog among the kangaroos

The dedication to quality and outstanding taste have paid off. Amongst tight competition to win against the brand pillar ‘tastes the best,’ Blue Frog has increased perception the quickest. Taste is something Blue Frog Breakfast owns amongst challenger brands and over indexes in strength in association against the biggest players in the Australian market. 

However, even if people are onboard with the taste, convincing people to pay more for a premium cereal is tough. “With nearly a year of being in the Australian market, our biggest challenge is building our brand awareness there,” says Madeleine. “It is vital we know where we may drop off in people’s consideration to buy us versus what they already know.”

“Tracksuit has given us the tools and insights to see where we need to prioritize our marketing efforts and strategies we can adopt to ensure we develop this brand loyalty amongst our Australian consumers.”

As a leading brand in the breakfast category, it is essential for Blue Frog Breakfast to understand how people perceive their brand across a range of metrics. Madeleine and her team can then use these insights to make tweaks to ensure they are always front of mind for their consumers and delivering what they want. 

The breakfast category is highly competitive and customers can quickly and easily make the switch between buying a Blue Frog Breakfast product, and any other cereal sitting alongside them. Making them the preferred choice will help drive purchase behavior outside of promotions and shelf availability - in fact, FMCG brands are using Tracksuit data to have more meaningful conversations with category managers, proving their demand and gaining more shelf space. 

“Staying one step ahead of where the market is heading will be critical to our future success,” affirms Madeleine. 

Growing authentically: A blueprint for success

Of course, Blue Frog are also winning by simply being an awesome brand. They are more than just a bag of cereal on the shelf and have a massive focus on their community. They have many initiatives in place to improve the wellbeing of those in the workplace and wider community, as well as the environment. 

“From the top quality ingredients we source, to being Living Wage Accredited, to our goal of Zero Waste to Landfill 2025, everything we do is with purpose and integrity. We are Ekos-certified Climate Positive – meaning we offset 120% of our carbon emissions, because we understand the need to overcompensate in our efforts to not only reduce, but improve our environmental impact. From a community perspective, we donate more than 20,000 breakfasts per annum through charities such as the City Missions, Kiwi Harvest and Oz Harvest – giving everyone the opportunity to enjoy a healthy breakfast,” Madeleine says. 

They have also come on board with parkrun AustraliaOpens in new tab who run free weekly community events as a proud primary sponsor, allowing them to talk to parkrun’s database of over 400,000 people and engage with them through activations at weekly parkruns all over Australia.

“Because we know that breakfast tastes better when it’s helping the planet, and our people, too.”