PoultryWorld: A very Happy Eggs relaunch

One of world’s largest free-range egg brands hopes to break the £100m barrier following an outstandingly successful television marketing campaign over the past year.

The Happy Egg Company, part of Noble Foods, was launched in 2009 and saw phenomenal growth until the end of 2014, entering the US market in 2012 and expanding its product range to include pancakes, quiche and Scotch eggs.

It quickly established itself as the number 1 brand in the UK but progress stalled at the same time as traditional retailers struggled.

Veli Moluluo, Noble Foods managing director, said this was due to a number of factors which included:

• Egg category deflation – driven by intense competition in the retail market place
• Reduced advertising spend
• Unsuccessful innovation

‘Happy hens lay tasty eggs’
Working with marketing consultants The Clinton Partnership, its new marketing campaign wanted to get across the high welfare message, taste and enjoyment. It launched a £5m TV-led campaign around the UK with the strapline ‘Happy hens lay tasty eggs’, targeting the ABC123 audience.

Boosted the brands value
But Mr Moluluo said the results had been fantastic, boosting the brands value by £61.1m (€68.78 m) in the 11 months since the campaign was launched.

“We saw an additional 450,000 households buy from the Happy Egg Company and managed to achieve 94% brand prompted awareness. Household penetration rose by 0.7% and egg production grew by 3.4%,” he added.

Focus on welfare and taste
Speaking to Poultry World, Mr Moluluo said he was delighted the focus on welfare and taste had achieved such significant penetration.

He added that he hoped the brand would break through the £100m (€112.62 m) barrier by 2021.

The Happy Egg Company was shortlisted for the International Egg Commission’s prestigious Gold Egg award for marketing excellence.