An Award-Winning & Women-Owned Boutique Ad Agency
Meet E29 Marketing. A strategic marketing and advertising agency that is elevating the agency experience, one project at a time!
As an independent and women-owned agency, at E29 we’re breaking through barriers and industry standards to develop the agency of the future. We think differently and this thinking leads to better results for our clients.
E29 is comprised of a seasoned team of marketing specialists that are focused on creating extraordinary work at the speed of the marketplace. This means not only delivering exceptional products and services but most importantly value.
We dig deep, taking time to understand underlying challenges; then provide strategic solutions and bold creative ideas to connect consumers and brands in meaningful ways. And we rely on data to provide proof of the value we’re delivering.
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A New Innovation in Pizza
CHALLENGE
In July 2020, Foster Farms launched Smart Crust Pizza, a low carb, high protein, keto certified, frozen pizza line. The primary challenge was to develop a creative platform to support the product launch; however, there were a number of barriers to consider:
Foster Farms had no existing brand presence in the frozen pizza category
Frozen pizza is a crowded category with established brands at grocery
Plant-based and BFY products were fueling category growth
There was little market knowledge of chicken-based pizza crust which required consumer education
SOLUTION
E29 Marketing conducted a market analysis and deep dive into the consumer state of mind and uncovered a key insight to build the creative platform upon:
Americans will do anything to get their pizza fix. No one wants to give up pizza, no matter what their dietary restrictions, fitness regime or weight loss goals. Above all else, pizza is worth the cheat.
E29 Marketing utilized this key insight, combined with Smart Crust Pizza’s unique point of differentiation, to develop a creative campaign entitle “Cheat? Nope!” targeting Keto dieters, carb avoiders and high protein seekers.
The campaign marketing mix included: a robust digital media campaign (display and video), streaming audio, paid social, paid search, influencer, email and shopper marketing tactics.
CREATIVE IMPACT: SYSTEM1 TEST RESULTS
System 1, a best-in-class tech, research and data science platform, conducted a creative diagnostic test amongst Smart Crust Pizza’s target audience:
- 2x Smart Crust creative doubled all system1 benchmarks of emotional effectiveness
- Smart Crust creative ranked in the top 4% of all campaign measured
- Smart Crust product benefits and Guilt-Free Messaging drove excitement which translated into High Level (79%) Purchase Intent
- Smart Crust's Healthy Decadence Drove Happiness and Surprise amongst consumers
Working in a New Category
CHALLENGE
Setting a startup brand up for success in Year 2.
With a year’s worth of learning, the revolutionary infant probiotic, Evivo needed refinements and a defined roadmap for success.
Evolve Biosystems, makers of the revolutionary infant probiotic, Evivo, have a complex story to tell new moms. Breakthroughs in science proved with the advent of certain modern medical practices (antibiotics, C-sections), most First World mothers were no longer passing B.infantis (a good bacteria) along to their baby, which is critical to an infant’s developing immune and metabolic systems. Evivo however could restore this missing good bacteria in baby’s gut, and set baby up for life-long health, a key differentiator from other infant probiotics that simply treat current digestive symptoms (colic, etc.).
In addition to communicating the scientific distinctions of the product, Evivo also had to overcome the doubt many new mothers have regarding the need for a probiotic in the first place (my baby is healthy and growing, why would she need to take anything), as well as prove it was doing something for baby (immediately).
And to top it off, Evivo was a completely unknown brand – a brand that’s entire identity had to built from the ground up. E29 Marketing’s challenge for year two was to strengthen the brand’s positioning within the marketplace and develop a brand architecture. This brand architecture would help inform all touchpoints for the brand including internal and external messaging, advertising and brand guidelines.
STRATEGIC SOLUTION
A series of comprehensive workshops were conducted to identify internal drivers (vision, values and belief), brand personality (behavior, look and voice) and external proposition (consumer insight, core offer and RTBs). Through these workshops, E29 worked with the brand team to map out research needs to validate consumer insights. We also worked to further identify and segment our target to better reach and thus convert interest into sales.
The resulting revised architecture helped refine our messaging and brand cues, including a new digital and social brand campaign, “Future Starts Now.” This campaign was complemented by a grass roots “Real Mom Reviews” campaign using the incredible organic testimonials given by moms with product success stories.
Guiding the digital and social creative development was updating the brand guidelines, ensuring streamlined communication and visual representation. Brand cues, graphics, color, typography and photography. This guide is used internally and by all partner agencies.
IMPACT
With week over week sales growth, E29 Marketing took year one learnings to the next level in year two with continued monthly success.
Eighteen months post-launch we’ve seen:
- 1,600,000,000+ Impressions
- 1,400,000+ Web Sessions
- 4,500 Coupon codes redeemed
- 1,400+ Consumer reviews received
- 21% Average month-over-month sales increase*
*Most current 6 months only (to adjust for inflated results if shown from launch)
The Power of Influencers for a Foodie Brand
CHALLENGE
Genova premium tuna was a hidden jewel in the Chicken of the Sea portfolio and had a small, but passionate following. With a new brand architecture in place, and success of third party endorsements as part of our integrated marketing support plan, the brand wanted to heavy up in key markets to continue to gain broader awareness and raise consideration for Genova as a healthy, delicious, sustainable and easy lunch or dinner option.
STRATEGIC SOLUTION
Employ high-reach influencers that have a majority voice in specific geo-targeted areas who specialize in mouth-watering recipe creation. Further extend this content through amplification efforts on Genova’s social channels.
IMPACT
During the programs 3-month period:
- Potential Reach: 7.5M
- Amplified Clicks: 1.8K
- Amplified Reach: 205.1K
- Impressions: 176.3K
- Video Views: 25.3K
- Pins: 907
- Engagements: 7.2K
The Craze of CBD
CHALLENGE
Daytrip is a new CBD- Infused Sparkling Water Brand that launched in Summer 2019. E29 was hired by Daytrip to launch the brand and ensure Daytrip gained broad scale awareness quickly, as this was paramount to early success in a very competitive market. However, navigating the category’s legal limitations in terms of national marketing of CBD beverages proved challenging.
STRATEGIC SOLUTION
Due to the fact that there are very few marketing tactics that can be used to support CBD, it was critical to develop a laser-focused strategic plan to maximize budget on legally approved tactics. E29 led a deep dive into consumer insights and media habits, so as to target the right person in the right frame of mind. Gain broad-reach with a geo-targeted digital media plan placing media contextually and against specific audience interests. Additionally, to ensure that the brand capitalized on all search queries in the category, we developed a strategic SEM campaign was created against top performing keywords. The creative content was developed to appeal to California frame of mind and feeling of “taking a daytrip”. Lastly, create a personal connection with consumers through multiple email campaigns.
ACTIVATION
Development of insight-driven creative content and advertising
- Development of insight-driven creative content and advertising
- Launched with geo-targeted digital display advertising
- SEM campaigns
- Strategic development of CRM cadence and implementation
IMPACT
During the program’s first 3-months:
- Median CTR well above industry average: 0.06%
- Digital display drove over 8% of all eComm sales
- 1/3 of all site traffic coming to site via Paid Search
- CRM drove 1% of all eComm conversions
- Over 40MM total impressions from digital display, paid search, influencers and PR
Future Starts Now
CHALLENGE
Having been in market for just six months, Evivo baby probiotic uncovered an insight. First and second time moms responded very differently to the brand. Those with experience were receptive to the symptomatic relief a baby probiotic can provide. First time moms found mentioning symptomatic conditions such as colic and diaper rash as scary and unnerving.
The two audiences require different communication. But as a start up with limited marketing funds, Evivo did not have the budget to market two entirely separate campaigns.
STRATEGIC SOLUTION
Evivo’s primary point of differentiation from other baby probiotics is its ability to restore the infant gut with good bacteria. Bacteria that enables proper immune and metabolic development, thus setting baby up for life-long health.
A shift in messaging from the here-and-now reality of mom’s life with a new baby, to one focused on baby’s future was developed. In addition, less dramatic visuals were introduced, lightening the tone as the brand delved further into highly proactive health matters.
IMPACT
The new campaign was targeted to the same audience as the original blank; moms with a baby 6 months or younger. However, results indicate both target groups - first time moms and experienced moms - found the refreshed messaging to be resonant:
• Sales increased 20%+ week-over-week for the six-months following unveiling of the new campaign
• Consumer reviews from first time moms increased 40%, while experienced mom reviews paced equivalently to the pre-refresh timeframe
• Social media engagement nearly doubled after introducing the new campaign
A Celebrity Brand
CHALLENGE
The Hard Night Good Morning (HNGM) skin care brand was created by the Real Housewives of Dallas star D’Andra Simmons. The brand was originally owned by Ultimate Living, which was her mother’s brand of nutritional supplements. Ultimate Living was officially taken over by D’Andra in Spring 2019. Unfortunately, once she took over the company, she uncovered that the HNGM the brand, in addition to the supplements business, was in a steep decline. Hard Night Good Morning needed to re-position itself as premium, yet affordable, effective skin care brand and remind past purchasers that the brand was still viable, while driving broad-scale awareness and appealing to new younger customers.
STRATEGIC SOLUTION
Launch digital advertising via social media to regain awareness of the brand. Leverage D’Andra’s celebrity status to drive brand interest and sales by tapping into the Real Housewives audience, targeting her fanbase, all while ensuring ecommerce on the site ran running smoothly.
ACTIVATION
- Development of digital media creative content for advertising
- Planning and buying Social Media Advertising, as well as optimization against current and new target audiences
- SEO analysis and optimization
IMPACT
In the first 2 months, Hard Night Good Morning Sales increased by 70% and reached over 4+ million impressions each month. The monthly campaign drove 42% more traffic than any previous marketing campaign executed by the brand in previous years. The campaign is still in market and sales continue to increase each month.
Helping a Startup
CHALLENGE
Evolve BioSystems launched in 2017 with a primary objective of building awareness for the Evolve brand and positioning the company as an industry leader in the science of the gut microbiome.
Moving into FY ’18/19, the primary objective for Evolve shifted to focus on driving sales of Evivo, the first and only infant probiotic clinically proven to repopulate baby’s gut with B. infantis. This change in objectives required a shift in strategy and overall approach to how Evolve behaved across social media.
Given the shift of objectives, E29 was asked to audit Evolve’s social media platforms to asses what was working, make recommendations for future activity, and outline a new strategic approach.
SOLUTION
E29 assessed Evolve’s social presence on LinkedIn and Twitter and determined there was an opportunity to make a strategic shift. Instead of only using Evolve social pages to speak to medical professionals, E29 recommended including select content targeted to consumers, thus using Evolve’s expertise in the gut microbiome space to further credential Evivo.
Furthermore, E29 recommended using Evolve’s social platforms to drive additional website sessions and conversions for Evivo by directing traffic to the Evivo website.
IMPACT
Without the support of paid media, E29 was able to organically grow the follower count on Evolve’s LinkedIn and Twitter pages by 63% and 43% respectively.
Additionally, E29 was able to help drive 344 incremental sessions on the Evivo website.
Perfecting the Always-On Influencer Marketing
CHALLENGE
Evivo is a clinically-proven probiotic uniquely designed for babies. Born from over a decade of research at the University of California Davis, probiotics for babies and the importance of baby gut health was relatively unknown.
In order to drive awareness and trial of the parade category brand, Evivo needed to translate the science in a consumer-friendly way, educate on the benefits for their newborn as well as the reasons why their baby may need a probiotic in the first place.
Because of the brand’s low awareness and cost compared to the competition, as well as the age of the end-user, Evivo required authentic third-party endorsements. Through research, E29 found that moms often look to their family and friends as well as other moms for this credentialing.
SOLUTION
E29 Marketing established an always-on influencer initiative to provide authentic third-party endorsements. Through a focused selection criteria over a two-year period, we’ve optimized towards activating new and repeat micro influencers with established Instagram and blogs that complimented the Evivo brand.
Influencers created authentic narratives, #MyEvivoStory on their blog, Instagram feed and Instagram story as well as other social platforms as well as offering their readers Evivo coupons. E29 amplified the influencers’ voices by activating social ads using the influencers’ handles, utilizing lookalike audiences and retargeting tactics while testing messaging and objectives to aid in optimizations of other marketing activities.
IMPACT
During the year, August 2019 through August 2020 we executed four influencer programs delivering:
· 41 activated influences
· 19,077,303 potential organic impressions
· 1,192,813 white-listed paid social impressions
· 5,782 organic clicks
· 236 posts
· 39,981 organic engagements
· 4.41% white-listed paid social ave ctr
· 60,841 white-listed paid social clicks
· Return on ad spend (ROAS) for the program broke even at 1:1
Reviews
the project
Marketing Planning & Implementation for Microbiome Company
"What sets them apart from other agencies was, they were strategic and analytical."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
Sr. Vice President Sales & Marketing
For what projects/services did your company hire E29 Marketing?
As a startup, the fast pace we’re moving at is daunting. It’s been a dream to have E29 at our side to act as an extension to our team. They listen, often read between the lines, and continuously offer up creative new ideas to accelerate our growth.
E29 provides strategic leadership to us and our other agency partners as well as provides high-level expertise in digital media, social media, and influencer marketing. They also have the most thorough and useful analytical reporting techniques of any agency I’ve ever worked with. E29 is the complete package.
How did you select this vendor?
We researched multiple partners, held an RFP process, and ultimately chose E29 due to the strategic, creative, and analytical abilities.
Describe the scope of their work in detail.
E29 leads all strategic planning and implementation for the Evivo brand. They partner with our other agencies for integration and execution.
What was the team composition?
Client Team: small team focused on both direct to consumer and direct to health care professional Agency Team: integrated team that flexed as the business needs arose
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
E29 helped launch the brand Evivo, delivering significant revenue growth across consumers and health care professionals
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
Extremely effective. We hold weekly status meetings to ensure we are all on the same page. E29 works behind the scenes with other agencies and vendors to keep the machine moving forward.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
What sets them apart from other agencies was, they were strategic and analytical. In addition they have creative 'chops', and flex their business model to best deliver against the needs of the business.
Is there any area for improvement or anything that could have been done differently?
NA
the project
Digital Marketing & Advertising for Prepackaged Spice Co
"They’ve just taken the lead and been a trusted advisor."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
SugarRoti developed and sells pre-measured Indian spice blends from its e-commerce store. I’m the co-founder and co-CEO, together with my partner, co-founder and co-CEO Bina Motiram. We launched SugarRoti in January 2021.
What challenge were you trying to address with E29 Marketing?
Our challenge has been marketing to customers in a purely digital space. We reached out to E29 to develop our marketing strategy and approach. As we launched, we focused particularly on digging deep and coming up with our voice around our brand guidelines. Then, we homed in on how to take that carefully curated voice and thread it across all of our channels in all of our operations, particularly on our website, where the brand guidelines should work in perfect synchronicity. Finally, E29 helped us ensure that all is reflected in our organic social media as well.
What was the scope of their involvement?
The scope of work was to come in and really take the lead on creating a marketing plan and a footprint around it that related to our launch in a purely e-commerce digital setting. After identifying our core target audiences and building from the marketing plan, E29 went into deep work and created our brand voice, which was the first and most important deliverable.
They also helped us reflect that brand voice in our brand guidelines — all the way to the font and colors we use. They developed the narrative of our voice, which was critical because it was truly the root from which all of our collateral flowed. Thus, they played a key role by helping us really understand our brand, what we bring to the table as founders, and how that synergy is reflected in our company and products.
Since our launch in January, they’ve helped us build KPIs around all of our marketing. As we’ve moved on to paid marketing on Google and Facebook, they’ve helped us to start at the top of the funnel and then go deeper to deploy our dollars in a careful, targeted way so we can get those potential customers to our website and convert them into purchases.
What is the team composition?
Amie (Owner & CEO) is our main point of contact. She has a team that steps in and out; there are four people across different functions who are instrumental in helping us.
How did you come to work with E29 Marketing?
We had done a lot of research trying to find smart, practical, and effective marketing partners in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) and food launch startup space. My partner and I did research separately, so I can’t recall where their name came up.
When we put them on our slate of companies to look at, the fact that they were a women-owned company was really important to us because we were also a women-and-women-of-color startup.
They also had really great experience in the food startup and CPG space — they have great connections in the marketplace. Then, when we met them, they were just very smart, articulate, and practical.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent over $25,000. I think it’s still coming and going.
What is the status of this engagement?
We began working together in November 2020 and are still working with them, thinking about what’s next and how we continue to evolve.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
As part of the deliverables, they developed this great KPI tool. It’s an extremely detailed Excel spreadsheet in which we’re able to put in our proposed goals and then see how we perform based on the data. We can sort of keep our eyes on the prize and see where we’re falling behind and where we're meeting our goals, which has been really helpful.
Furthermore, the fact that they’re so data-driven allows us to get true KPI measurements to make sure that we’re getting the value of all of our marketing dollars and marketplace efforts.
How did E29 Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?
It’s been excellent. They’ve really helped us to develop good discipline and protocols around that. We’ve been having standing meetings. They’ve been amazingly effective at communicating and ensured that we had a considered agenda to follow up on any action items. They work well with people, and we’ve really appreciated the ones they brought into our business. They’re just a real well-oiled machine.
What did you find most impressive about them?
My partner and I are tough customers since we’ve both been executives at other companies and we’re very involved in the details. E29’s team is very respectful, but they absolutely bring their industry experience to bear in terms of challenging direction, questions, and assumptions that we bring to the table. It has helped us learn the space. Also, bringing the fact that we’ve never been CEOs, they’ve helped us step into that role.
In that sense, they’ve just taken the lead and been a trusted advisor. Amie in particular has been a terrific partner and business guidepost for us as we’ve gone through the process of launching, building brand awareness, and getting conversions and sales back to our website. We’ve been very lucky to work with them.
Are there any areas they could improve?
It’s just the nature of an ad agency model. Their billing model is always challenging because an agency has to pay a team. The secret sauce is to figure out a way that makes sense for an early-stage company to make it affordable while they can still ensure they’re meeting their revenue goals. Therefore, being project-based or having project-driven deliverables is sort of limiting given the inherent challenges to that model. However, E29 has been great to work with and has tried very hard to be creative as we spend our scarce dollars in this really critical area.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Do your diligence around what is an agency and what does it mean to work with an outside agency versus an in-house marketing resource — where you’re maybe using a consultant or group that fills in for an employee — so you can be more astute on how to set up the relationship. It’s better to be able to break down the inherent challenges of an agency versus an outside partner than learning them as you go.
the project
Digital Marketing for Food Production Company
"E29 Marketing is very knowledgeable on paid search, keyword research, and different tactics."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I work as a brand manager at Foster Farms. It is a consumer goods company that sells chicken.
What challenge were you trying to address with E29 Marketing?
We were launching a low-carb chicken crust pizza, and we decided to hire E29 Marketing to work on our media plan, creating digital assets for our digital partners and helping us with our social media platforms.
What was the scope of their involvement?
E29 Marketing did a photoshoot and sorted the talent for it, getting in a diverse range of people trying the pizza product. Then, they led an influencer campaign for us. The team found different influencers online that were relevant in the low-carb keto space to send them samples of our products. Those influencers would create content that we could reuse on our platforms.
They also created a media plan to find the right places to put information and the ads they designed. They did digital banners, product detail pages for our website with their copy, and more digital assets. On top of that, E29 Marketing helped us optimize the placement of particular video buttons we had to get the best click-through conversions.
We are now working on a new launch campaign for the chicken crust pizza, driving another wave of marketing and promotions. E29 Marketing is doing a digital 15-second ad video. We plan to launch it in Q3 this year.
What is the team composition?
At least 10 people are working on the project.
How did you come to work with E29 Marketing?
We were looking for agencies that were in the Bay Area because Foster Farms had previously worked with some companies that weren't local. It ended up being harder because of the different time zone.
E29 Marketing helped us because they were already familiar with our company — they were located on the West Coast and would be close enough to have in-person meetings. E29 was also willing to take our budget for our new launch compared to other larger companies. The hope was to do business and expand exclusively with E29 Marketing if the project went well.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent under $1,000,000. The investment for the paid media was around $600,000, and we have invested around $400,000–$500,000 for the hours and assets.
What is the status of this engagement?
The project started in April 2020. The partnership has become ongoing because we are pleased with the work E29 Marketing has executed and the results.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The quality of work that E29 Marketing provides is great. We like the videos that they create with the talent we have. They're also able to create good content for our Instagram and Facebook accounts.
We measure success with several KPIs, including coupon downloads, click-through rate (CTR) conversions, and landing page costs. The landing page performance has improved week over week since we started it. Spotify is one of the items that E29 has ended up bringing in for audio completion rate, and it’s been extremely well received.
The brand live study measures the reactions of the people who have been exposed to our ad video, including their sentiments over it, if they have heard the brand before, and how likely they are to try the product. We’ve seen a 30% increase from people who have watched it. That’s also positive feedback.
How did E29 Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?
We do a Zoom call once a week, and E29 Marketing maintains an Excel spreadsheet that speaks to all the ongoing projects for the different divisions of the company. It also has what deliverables they may need from us, tracks the timeline of where they are, and monitors the budget for each project. It's been great being able to have dialogues on a consistent basis.
Once E29 Marketing sends us the first round of creative, we provide feedback within a week to a week and a half. We go back and forth with different iterations to make sure that we are aligned on any changes that could potentially happen and may require us to push the timeline back.
We also have a KPI workbook that we go through every month, which is something new that I haven’t experienced with other agencies. The point is that E29 Marketing digs into the details, and I think it’s very helpful.
What did you find most impressive about them?
E29 Marketing is very knowledgeable on paid search, keyword research, and different tactics. They come with a holistic approach versus sticking with the status quo, and they figure out new ways to drive awareness or trial for our products.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I don't know if I would do anything differently. E29 Marketing does a great job of communicating. When things aren't working, and they feel our money isn't being optimized in the best way, E29 Marketing figures out how to move it and use it.
Any advice for potential customers?
E29 Marketing enjoys when they are working with a client that isn't just looking to them to have all the answers. They like to be equally engaged. I recommend having your own ideas and thoughts. From there, you can dwindle it down to what will work for you based on your restrictions, budget, and timeline.
Keep in mind that you can’t always have everything you want. E29 Marketing wants to have consistent feedback and a dialog with you. Therefore, be open and willing to connect with them.