Brand Activation at BeFit Festival 2017

As a guy standing at the back of a room full of beach body ready ladies in gym leggings, taking photos and making notes, I did feel a tad conspicuous. So what was I doing here? Well, I was working. No honestly! My mission was to check out the activities of two brands: Protein World and Oat-ly. I checked both websites and social pages before the event for build up… nothing. So let’s see how they did on the day.

Oatly had the biggest stand with a programme of talks and presentations which were drawing huge crowds of 20 something women who spilled out onto the surrounding walkways, stairs and balconies. I sat through an interview with Alice Liveing: a health food vlogger and PT. She focussed on promoting a healthy mental attitude and how that leads to positive lifestyle changes that are sustainable and ultimately healthy. I had a look on her Youtube channel a week after the show and there was no mention of her appearance. I also check Oat-ly’s Youtube channel - nothing from the show there either.

There were Oat-ly cartons dotted around all the stands, having been supplied free of charge to the other exhibitors for use in their cereals and shakes, very clever. There was a second Oat-ly stand that was handing out cartons of plain and chocolate flavoured Oat-ly drinks hand over fist. I tried the original flavour. Predictably, it tastes distinctly of oats and nothing like milk. They were making coffee with steamed Oat-ly, it froths really well! And it tastes a hell of a lot nicer than soya milk. They weren’t selling anything, it was all free. It was only on this stand I saw the hashtag #postmilkgeneration. Funny, as I would have thought the material on the main stage would have been more shareable than a lactose free cappuccino.

A Google of the hashtag a few days later brings up a few photos and videos from the show but no significant presence. The social message seems to be focussed around kindness to animals but this didn’t come through on the day. It seems they didn’t really think about how they were going to capitalise on the festival to extend their reach beyond the day. There was lots of fantastic shareable content but no clear invitation to share it.

Having had my fill of Oat-ly I went to find the Protein World stand, it was right at the front next to a ‘pink’ Myprotein stand (awkward). Visitors have the opportunity to enter a competition to win a year’s supply of supplements and a holiday! All you have to do is have your photo taken by the on site photographer, the best photo wins. I was quickly pounced on and fed samples of a new range of Slender Bars. Which were surprisingly nice considering the low sugar and fat content. There were a few protein shake samples too, I tried the salted caramel flavour - Delicious! Or disgusting, depending on your palette. There was the tone up range which Protein World called their ‘Bums and Tums pack’ and the weight loss range which was called ‘The 30 Day Challenge’ - skilfully named to appeal to women. I couldn’t find their ‘Personality’ range but I’m sure they have one. Staff knew the protein content of every product, the sugar and fat content I had to look up myself. They also knew all about the benefits and the differences of all the ranges on display, and they sold loads with their today only pricing! I entered their competition with a cartwheel and posted it with the hashtag. A quick search the next day and Protein World have posted the winners (all better than my cartwheel) and a few familiar assets related to the ranges they were pushing on the day. The website was also pushing the same two ranges but no mention of the show or the competition. Still, they extended the reach of the event more successfully than Oat-ly with an incentive to share and the opportunity to get some fun snaps with friends.

The event went well for both brands, especially Oat-ly, who really owned the day. But there was a missed opportunity by both to engage before and after the event. For Protein World the show was primarily a sales exercise, but they could have made more of the competition on social. For Oat-ly it was a brilliantly executed brand building exercise, but they didn’t use any of the fantastic content from the show to extend the reach further after the day. Maybe next year.