Stanton & Company

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Pure Organic makes organic snacks for people of all ages. I’m the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Stanton & Company?

We needed to hire a marketing and PR firm to create awareness for our brand. Our company was young, and we were rapidly growing, so we wanted to utilize a good PR & marketing firm to continue our growth.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The collaboration started with both marketing and PR, but Stanton & Company has moved to a PR and social media management role. As we got larger, we brought the basic marketing in-house because it was more efficient to have someone on staff.

Stanton & Company does press outreach, sampling, press releases, and yearly strategy and activation for Pure. Stanton & Company implements media tours with our company. They create and implement events for us. Stanton & Company continues to run our social media marketing, and they create social and digital assets for us.

How did you come to work with Stanton & Company?

One of our investors referred Stanton & Company. We interviewed several different companies, but I was impressed with Amy, the owner of Stanton and Company. She and I have a lot of similarities, and we're like-minded. She had a lot of experience in marketing and PR, but she also understood the natural and organic lifestyle, so she was able to understand our target audience.

How much have you invested with Stanton & Company?

We've invested a good amount of money over the years, but have seen an amazing return on that investment.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Stanton & Company in the fall of 2009, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The quality of Stanton & Company’s work is very good. Stanton & Company brings a lot of knowledge and experience to the table. Our company has seen success, and I know a lot of that can be attributed to them. We’ve grown by double digits every year.

Stanton & Company helped us establish relationships with key editors, large publications, and television outlets. They’ve also recently helped us advance our social media program, and that has helped us reach a lot more people.

How did Stanton & Company perform from a project management standpoint?

Stanton & Company is very good at management execution of projects. They’re very organized, and the events they manage are always very well planned.

We communicate daily with them through email and talk weekly on the phone. Stanton & Company haven’t missed any deadlines.

With Stanton & Company, we have tried different things to see how they worked and some things worked, and others didn’t. The team has been very strategic about looking back on past years and seeing what tactics have worked. They keep track of how the market is changing and adjust for that.

What did you find most impressive about Stanton & Company?

What I really like about Stanton & Company is that they’re a small agency so you don’t get lost like you might with a bigger agency. In a small agency, upper management is very involved and always available to you. Their principals are just a phone call away if I need anything. I feel like I get more benefits from them than I would from a big agency.

Are there any areas Stanton & Company could improve?

Right now, they have a really good team. There have been times when they’ve brought people in that haven’t worked. When that happens, they are quick to notice that and adjust accordingly. The only struggle we’ve had is with the consistency of resources and making sure the new hires are on par. However, most of the time I’m very happy with their team. I think they do the best they can when trying to hire good people, but sometimes it doesn’t work out.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Sambazon, an acronym for the Sustainable Management of the Brazilian Amazon, is based out of San Clemente. Founded in 1999, we are the largest importer of açaí to the United States and the only vertically integrated company in the industry—we have a closed loop supply chain. From the time that the berry is picked from the palm of the tree until it gets to the palm of your hand, it’s an organically sustainably harvested product. I am the director of consumer engagement.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Stanton and Company?

Regarding volume, we’re the largest açaí company, and we want to own the conversation with açaí. It’s still not a product that is a household name, but it is definitely trending right now. One of our biggest fears and our biggest competition is becoming a commodity. We needed Stanton & Company’s help with owning the conversation so that Sambazon becomes synonymous with açaí.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have a broad scope of work, and they’ve filled in the gaps in things that we probably didn’t even think all the way through in the beginning. I feel like they’ve gone above and beyond. I don’t know that we necessarily mapped it out to the detail as the work ended up being.

We asked them to develop an influencer program and maintain that for us. We’ve done product launches. They’ve helped us with press releases, desk sites, certain events, and short and long-term leads.  We did some mailers for them, and they helped us design them. For some of the events that they’ve taken us to, we did something called a cooking cottage. At our trade show in Expo West, they’ve put together one-pagers for us.

How did you come to work with Stanton and Company?

Another partner referred Stanton & Company very highly to us. I met with other agencies, but it was an easy decision for me.

We’re a pretty tough brand. We’re complicated and can be considered a niche market. Stanton & Company made such an effort. The entire team is incredible, and they took the time to get to know us and figure out exactly what it was that we needed. When they came back with their proposal, they got it right off the bat. We felt they had a good portfolio that led us to believe that they worked in some of the right circles that we were looking for and hit the demographics that we needed.

Stanton & Company listened to what I said and customized their work to what I needed. We are a small company, so our budget wasn’t huge. They took the budget that I gave them and added a ton of value to it. I felt like they were making those dollars work really hard for us.

How much have you invested with Stanton and Company?

The work has cost between $200,000 and $1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The contract started January 2016, but we planned a couple of months before that. The work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Regarding press alone, their work has doubled or tripled the publication or engagement that we had previously. Stanton & Company added a lot of value in terms of the types of publications that we were getting. We started getting bigger and more frequent hits. Each of the hits was talking about the things we needed to talk about.

We did not have much success before working with Stanton & Company in terms of getting the brand in each mention or hitting the points that we wanted to hit, but Stanton and Company knocked it out of the park. As a small brand, we were approaching people a lot of times, but now people are approaching us.

We’ve seen an uptick in brand and product recognition. Açaí is not a household name yet; it’s on the coasts, but not in all the states in between, yet we feel like we’ve caught momentum.

How did Stanton and Company perform from a project management standpoint?

Stanton & Company is great and easy to work with. They’re super “on it” and very professional. Regarding PR, they’re the authority to me. A lot of times, they’ll bring an idea to me, and I’ll ask for their opinion. They’re really good about giving an honest opinion, and they end up swaying my decision one way or the other. It’s been right 95% of the time.

They’re always available. Stanton & Company hits deadlines and keeps me on track a lot of times. I find them to be really helpful. We communicated through email.

What did you find most impressive about Stanton and Company?

We’re a small company, so we don’t have a huge budget, but that was never a problem for them. They’ve always said, “Tell us what you have, and we’re going to make something happen with it.” They’re super nimble and very creative, which has been helpful. From the second that we brought them on, we knew it was the right decision, and we haven’t looked back on that.

Are there any areas Stanton and Company could improve?

For a small company, there’s only so many things we can do. They’ve been so great at providing many opportunities for us, that we had to go back and ask them also to tell us which ones they think we should do. That’s helped our communication a little bit.

They hit our demographic and the niche market, but we’d also like to get outside of that a little bit. That’s partially our fault because it’s been an initiative for us to go towards that, but now we need to broaden out a little bit. I think Stanton & Company can help us do that.