Me and My Brand: innocent drinks

Do you have any new product development?

It has been a busy year with NPD for us. We launched our new shots range with three tasty (but punchy) recipes back in March, which are all in fully recyclable 100ml bottles which is a first in the category. We also relaunched our super smoothies, which saw three new recipes added to the range, including a blue one which we’re pretty proud of. On top of that, we added two new recipes boosted with vitamins to our innocent plus range, Power to the Purple and Rays and Shine which help complete our range rainbow on the shelf. Finally, our new super smoothies for older kids hit the shelves in October. The range is packed full of fruit and veg and boosted with Vitamin D and iron, both common nutritional deficiencies in the UK.

How are you supporting your brand & NPD?

To support the additions to our super smoothie range, we splashed them everywhere throughout October (not literally). We put them on TV, Out-of-Home, social media, in store media and a bit of PR to spread the word. And we’ve also bean up to some mischief. To celebrate the launch of our new breakfast smoothie ‘Up and Oat’, we teamed up with Heinz to launch ‘Beanz Machine’, a smoothie filled with baked beans that would also be great for breakfast. Some people loved it, some people hated it and some people were just plain confused. In a blow to those after a baked bean smoothie, we took to social media to clarify that it won’t be launching it anytime soon - but that they could still get their breakfast smoothie fill with ‘Up and Oat’.

How important are independent retailers to your brand?

Our independent retailers are incredibly important and valuable to us. They continue to support us through new product launches and marketing campaigns, as well as giving our drinkers the opportunity to pick up our drinks almost anywhere in the UK, wherever and whenever. When lockdown started to ease and retailers started to open back up again after a difficult period of national closures, we ran a stock giveaway to help them get back on their feet, sending out over 82,000 drinks. We know how important convenience retailers are in local communities up and down the country, and we want to do what we can to support them in the months and years ahead.

What trends are occurring in the sector?

We are continuing to see our drinkers focus on getting more good stuff into their diets, and this has become even more important in the last few months. The NPD we’ve launched over the last few years fits perfectly with this- our innocent plus and super smoothies all have added health benefits. Only 1 in 10 children are getting their 5-a-day and so increasing kids’ intake of fruit and veg has never been so important. We moved our kids’ smoothies to 150ml, with the range continuing to be 1 of your 5-a-day as well as perfect for lunchboxes. And, with the launch of our super kids’ smoothie range, we’ll continue to make sure we’re providing easy ways for parents to get more of the good stuff into their kid’s diets.

Describe your brand in three words:

Natural, healthy, responsible. At innocent we try to do business the right way. We take responsibility for our impact on society and the planet and always try to leave things better than we found them. As a brand we don’t take things too seriously, from our informal tone of voice to our light-hearted posts on social media, it’s all about being human and making people’s day a bit better.