January is a key time for fitness product placement. Being able to break through the noise and drive sales during the festive period can be make or break for many brands.
Our Sport & Fitness Team worked with SIXPAD to help them do just that.
The brief
SIXPAD brought The PHA Group onboard to help their manufacturer, MTG, leverage earned media channels to increase traffic to the SIXPAD UK website. Additionally, we were tasked with supporting the wider sales drive ahead of the key sales periods of Christmas and New Year. There was also a long-term ambition to position SIXPAD as an essential part of the consumer’s exercise routine, promoting the real benefits of having SIXPAD as part of your health and fitness regime.
The challenge
SIXPAD had started to suffer from a lack of brand visibility, with less people talking about, or being aware of, their range of products and the benefits of using them.
SIXPAD were losing ground in the EMS category to rival brands on the market, who were owning the influencer space on social media with their low-quality high volume approach.
More broadly, innovations in the fitness product market were providing consumers with more choice and making the sector ever more competitive.
SIXPAD needed to find a way to increase brand recognition and to reach more consumers to help them stay competitive and own the market once more.
Our strategy
We targeted a broad range of media titles to increase visibility amongst a varied audience base and to reach new potential SIXPAD customers.
We launched the new EMS range to consumer media and gained several highly sought after placements in Christmas gift guides, which enabled us to put the product range front of mind for many of our potential target audience.
The team also set out driving journalist reviews to secure positive write-ups during the festive period.
We also secured inclusion for the product as a must-have training aid for those looking to kickstart their fitness goals in January. This kind of exposure, at this time of year, is hugely valuable for any fitness brand and it proved to be the case for SIXPAD.
Finally, we undertook an influencer marketing campaign to enhance product reputation and to educate potential customers about the benefits of the SIXPAD products.
The results
In terms of sales impact – store sales were especially high, with an increase of 98% in December compared with November 2018. During January, SIXPAD saw three times as many online sales on Amazon against October’s numbers which was an outstanding achievement.
The team secured more than 15 pieces of coverage over the crucial festive period, with a further 15 coming out in January and February during the busy New Year fitness period buzz.
SIXPAD was featured across national news, lifestyle, technology and sport industry-specific titles including: The Independent, Metro, Daily Express, Daily Star Sunday, Harper’s Bazaar and BALANCE magazine.
A piece of standout coverage was SIXPAD’s Body Fit product featuring in the highly sought-after Lust List product slot in Metro – the UK’s most read national daily newspaper.
If you’re interested in finding out more about what our team could achieve for you, or you’d simply like to know more about our product placement expertise please reach out today. We’d love to find out how we can work with you to help you achieve your business goals.
