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Jimmy’s Iced Coffee like to do things differently. With that iconic aluminium bottle, in-house creative team, and an impressive B-Corp score of 86, they have been making waves from their coastal Dorset HQ since 2010.
We sat down with Brand Head-Honcho, Nick Waring, to find out how Jimmy’s is leveraging BrandHealth in order to…
- Uncover awareness gaps and track national sentiment beyond their loyal customer base.
- Link brand perception to sales data identifying which supermarkets and regions drive growth.
- Fine-tune marketing activations, increasing awareness by 6% with minimal ATL spend.
- Launch successful new products, using consumer insights to create high-demand flavours.
Nick: “So we’ve got a really engaged audience of around 70,000 on our newsletter. Surveying those loyal brand customers is all well and good, but elm BrandHealth has been great for understanding brand awareness outside of our core following. We can see what people think about the brand and whether our messaging is resonating. It’s like, ‘Okay, is what we’re saying in our campaigns actually sticking on a national level?’ “
Nick: “We’ve always found tracking brand awareness hard. We’d do one-off surveys, but they were expensive and time-consuming. Plus, timing mattered - if you did a survey in winter, people might not be thinking about iced coffee. With elm BrandHealth, we track quarterly, so we can see fluctuations and correlate them with our business cycles.
RTD coffee is also a small category, so being able to survey people who shop in that space has been great as we aren’t making decisions on tiny sample sizes. With elm BrandHealth, it’s been so much easier. You just input your competitors, key attributes, and a few questions, and you get trackable data.”
Nick: “Seeing how awareness fluctuates. If you’re not constantly talking to people, awareness drops. We focus our activations and above-the-line (ATL) efforts from May to September, so it’s great to see how our mental share holds up during quieter months.
For example, in our last survey, we saw 6% awareness growth without much ATL spend. We could attribute that to in-store activations and tie it back to specific supermarkets which we can filter by in BrandHealth. It’s a great baseline to track from.”
Nick: “Absolutely. There’s a section in BrandHealth that shows our funnel amongst specific supermarket shoppers. It’s great for understanding demographics and how they change. For example, if a younger demographic starts shopping at a particular store, we can see that reflected in the data.”
Nick: “We saw the Southeast region lagging in awareness. We realised we hadn’t been doing much activation there, so we focused more on Brighton and surrounding areas. After that, we saw the Southeast pop back up in the data in the following dip.
We also use the data to help inform product launches. For instance, we launched a cinnamon bun flavour based on insights from Morrisons, one of our key retailers. It did so well that other supermarkets have now picked up our limited editions too.”
Nick: “Not really. The data’s been consistent with other studies we’ve done in the past. For example, we were named the “number one brand to watch” in an independent survey, and we saw similar positive metrics in our first elm BrandHealth survey.”
Nick: “Super quick. We had one meeting to set up key questions, like where people drink our product and what attributes they associate with it. It only took an afternoon to get everything running, and we update a custom question quarterly to explore specific topics, like new flavours or drinking occasions.”
Nick: “We’ve used it to explore things like what people want from iced coffee - whether it’s no added sugar, decaf options, or black coffee. It’s been really useful for understanding niche preferences.”
Nick: “Definitely. We’re not a big corporate entity, and we’re not a niche, hyper-local brand either. We’re like the Heinz baked beans of RTD coffee - good quality, accessible, and for everyone. The data helps us prove that we resonate with a younger demographic compared to some competitors, which is a strong selling point for retailers.”
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