By 2015, there were at least 20 start ups in the meal kit business, both national and regional. These meal kit businesses were responding to the growing consumer demand for high quality, fresh meals delivered direct to your door step with the exact recipes and ingredients you want to cook up in your own kitchen. Plated was one of the top 4 national players in meal kit delivery services, and was looking for a way to stand out from the pack to fuel growth, particularly through retention. While it was fairly easy to acquire customers, often through free trial offers, it was more difficult to retain them, particularly since all brands seemed the same.
We started by gaining insight, both digitally and in-homes, to understand the consumer journey, from the moment they learned about meals like Plated until serving them at home. We also used this qualitative learning to conduct a quantitative segmentation, identifying two key segments to target for positioning. After mapping the competition, we identified a meaningful white space for Plated to own, which deeply connected with the two key target segments. In activation workshops with the Plated team, we built the positioning together, and determined how to leverage it across each marketing activity and socialize it throughout the company.
Plated redesigned their website, recipes, pricing, and communications to reflect the new positioning, and acquisition almost doubled. This success led to its recent acquisition by Albertson’s.
