Taking An Indian Sauce Brand from Challenger to UK’s Fastest Growing

Objective

Kohinoor Joy is a UK-based manufacturer of Indian food products. They pride themselves on sharing the joys of Indian food and flavours through their authentic products, all of which are made in India using locally sourced ingredients. Their range of rice, stir-in sauces, meals in minutes, condiments, and snacks can be found in the World Food aisle of all major supermarkets in the UK.

Their ambition is to challenge market leaders Patak’s and Sharwood’s in the stir-in sauce market, so they approached Paladin to help them achieve this aim and grow sales in ‘Middle England’. We have worked with them over the last two years to help realise this goal.

One of the key aspects of growth was NPD (New Product Development). Research indicated that there was a gap in their range—specifically, the three best-selling stir-in curry sauces in Britain: Tikka Masala, Balti, and Korma. After developing the new products, we assisted them in bringing the sauces to market in the summer of 2023.

Strategy

The strategy was to create a campaign that appealed to Middle England while staying true to Kohinoor’s Indian roots. The idea was simple and effective, leading to the launch of the ‘Britain’s Favourites’ campaign.

Our core aims with Britain’s Favourites were:

1. Increase Market Share: Capitalise on the popularity of the Balti, Tikka Masala, and Korma sauces to increase Kohinoor’s market share online and in-store.
2. Enhance Brand Visibility: Strengthen Kohinoor Joy’s brand presence in the UK through a cohesive and impactful marketing campaign.
3. Boost E-commerce Sales: Utilise the e-commerce platform previously developed by Paladin Marketing to drive online sales and improve conversion rates.

To promote the campaign, Paladin created a series of assets inspired by British and Indian artwork. This included an original track produced by multi-award-winning composer Ben Parsons.

A key component of the “Britain’s Favourites” campaign was the creation of a dedicated landing page on the Kohinoor Joy e-commerce website. This landing page was designed to convert users with minimal steps to purchase, offering an enticing deal of 5 sauces for £9.99, with free delivery included.

We then employed a multi-channel approach, focusing on raising awareness, driving sales, and encouraging brand loyalty.

Shopping campaigns on Meta were designed to drive direct conversions by leveraging the Meta algorithm to find the users most likely to buy the product. Users who showed intent by interacting with an advert or taking an action on the website were re-targeted with adverts showcasing the latest positive customer reviews. This method was highly effective, resulting in 1,022 purchases.

In addition to shopping campaigns, Paladin also launched awareness campaigns on Meta platforms to build brand recognition and drive interest in the “Britain’s Favourites” range. These campaigns aimed to create buzz and generate interest among a broader audience.

On organic social media, we focused on collaborating with household names and influencers to showcase the new range and leverage their following to create more engagement with Kohinoor and boost organic awareness of the new Kohinoor offerings.

One example of this was teaming up with Tefal to run a competition in which users could win an air fryer along with a range of the new sauces. We created a number of new and original recipes using the sauces for use in an air fryer and ran the competition on social media. The competition was a great success, with 2,401 new followers added to Kohinoor’s network, 301k organic impressions, and an increase in engagement of 330%.

We identified the opportunity to use email marketing to boost sales and create a loyal community. To attract new customers to sign up, we offered an exclusive 10% off welcome offer. This, along with an abandoned cart email strategy, drove conversions and helped us build a database for future email marketing. This led to 1,385 new email subscribers.

Finally, end-users were encouraged to leave a review through an email flow. This allowed us to collect positive reviews for future advertising and use as social proof. A total of 400 five-star reviews were collected during this period.

Our multi-channel approach, led by original content that engaged the best of India and Britain, found the right audience with a product they couldn’t resist.

Results

The “Britain’s Favourites” campaign delivered outstanding results, bringing the sauces to market with a memorable campaign and significantly increasing e-commerce sales.

• Sales Growth:
  • Orders: 1,435 orders

• Brand Visibility:
  • Impressions: 11.52m
  • Reach: 3.28m
  • Landing page views: 14,587

• Customer Engagement:
  • New Social Followers: 2,400
  • Engagements: 300k
  • Post reactions: 1,526
  • Comments: 6,608
  • Subscriptions to newsletter: 1,385