Originating from Australia, Boost Juice Bars is an international retail chain that has over 350 stores operating in 17 countries. Boost Juice Bars have managed to establish themselves as a healthy brand, taking pride in offering healthy and nutritious products to consumers. Boost Juice Bars Singapore (BoostSG) first started out in November 2006 and has now expanded to 12 stores here in Singapore. With their philosophy of “love life”, Boost targets young adults aged 15 to 35 who seek for a healthy alternative to fast food. They aim to influence ordinary people to become healthier by changing their eating habits and exercising more.

Upon research on recent consumerism trends, we discovered that healthy consumerism is on the rise. Healthy food categories experienced greater growth than indulgent food categories, shifting consumer preferences. In the Asia Pacific region, 71% of the people surveyed would change their diet to lose weight, 50% were cutting down on sugar, fats, and increasing natural, fresh products. 93% of people in Asia pacific were also willing to pay more for healthier choice, with 43% willing to pay premium for all-natural products.

Observing the word cloud hashtags on Synthesio, for both Twitter and Instagram, a common hashtag consumers have mentioned were “healthy”, and in their respective platforms, “#customerexperience”, “#resolutionsfor2016”, “#calories”, “#fitness” and “#diet”, showing how they appear to be established as a healthy choice. However, while Boost Juice Bars are established as a healthy brand, their current marketing strategies do not focus on portraying a healthy brand image. As such, they are not fully capitalizing on their strengths, that they are a healthy choice, and not fully leveraging on the rising healthy consumerism trend. Moreover, BoostSG’s social media accounts do not garner a wide social media following considering that they are an international brand. Their Facebook account has only received 14,403 likes, while their Instagram account has a measly 596 followers. Despite the small following, they are still unable to achieve good social media engagement, having little to no customer involvement over their social media platforms.

These aforementioned points led us to our research question. How can Boost Juice Bars Singapore align its current strategies to its healthy brand image by improving social media engagement? With this research question, we hope to: In the short run, increase brand awareness of BoostSG and its social media platforms, as well as to improve its social media engagement. And in the long run, manage consumers’ impression of BoostSG more effectively and create stronger brand association between BoostSG and a healthy lifestyle.

In order to achieve these objectives, we have come up with 3 strategies. The first strategy is a collaboration between Boost Juice Bars and The Smart Local over Facebook and YouTube. The second strategy, “Boost Yourself”, attempts to let consumers take charge of their own drinks by holding an Instagram contest whereby users can create their own original recipes and possibly featuring these drinks in BoostSG stores. The last strategy involves collaboration between BoostSG and The Yoga Co. and using SnapChat to share these collaboration events.

To find out more details about our strategies and the journey of how we are planning to execute them, do stay tune for our presentation in class. We can’t wait to share more with you then!