Company Background
Amazin’Graze is a start-up originating from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is an online retailer of healthy handmade snacks that aims to change the way people consume snacks on a daily basis. The company was founded in 2015, and they have recently expanded their operations to Hong Kong and Singapore. They strongly believe in eating right, not less and use only raw ingredients that have high nutritional value in their products. The use of high quality raw ingredients followed by meticulous preparation resulted in fun, tasty and innovative combinations such as salted gula melaka granola, tom yum kaffir lime nut mix and all natural cashew butter, just to name a few.
Why Amazin’Graze?
The reason why we chose Amazin’Graze was due to their passion for food and their interesting snack creations. Moreover, the company’s mission to promote healthy eating habits alongside its desire to create an online community regarding health and body image is a cause we identify with. We were impressed with how they managed to combine more modern flavour profiles with traditional asian elements. We also chose to work on Amazin’Grace because it is a relatively new player in Singapore’s online food retail and health food segment. With its success in the Malaysian market, we see a huge potential for Amazin’Grace in the Singaporean market given the increasing awareness of health and fitness in the country. Thus, their mission to create a community promoting healthy eating habits and positive body image resonates very well with the public. With an array of online health food retailers in Singapore, we believe the company will truly benefit from an effective social media strategy. This will enable the company to create a stronger brand presence amidsts local competitors.
Why we chose this topic
Singapore continues to be ranked at the top when it comes to having the longest average weekly working hours globally. Additionally, there has been an increasing trend of unhealthy snacking that eventually leads to abnormal weight gain. Statistics has also shown that more than 3 in 5 Singaporeans have gained weight since starting work with many attributing it to unhealthy snacking. Stress eating is also known as uncontrolled eating whereby one is unable to control the amount and frequency of their food intake. The healthy, affordable and tasty snacks by Amazin’Graze would thus be the perfect alternative to counter the habit of unhealthy snacking.
Target Audience
As Amazin’Graze produces its products meticulously by hand, our target audience consists of young, affluent adults with spending power who are invested in living and eating healthily. Given the company’s choice of e-commerce as a platform, its target audience must be tech-savvy as well. Through the creation of brand presence and demand, we aim to assist the company in expanding to B2B sales to artisanal restaurants and cafes. This would give us greater exposure as well as opportunity to attract like-minded consumers who are interested in or are already eating healthy foods.
Issues
We identified 2 main issues that Amazin’Graze is currently facing:
- Insufficient brand presence in Singapore
Despite the increasing trend of unhealthy snacking, the demand for healthier alternatives are slowly increasing as well. Hence, there are currently several players already established in the Singapore market. Given the competition, it is not easy for Amazin’graze to compete with more established firms such as MadeReal and Boxgreen. The lack of a first-mover advantage definitely poses greater difficulty in terms of brand establishment. Hence, we hope to use relevant social media strategies to help improve their brand presence and capture market demand.
- Current social media strategy lacks interactive communication and feedback from consumers
Amazin’graze’s current social media strategy is a one-way engagement model that fails to encourage a two-way conversation with consumers. While the company’s active use of Facebook and Instagram is commendable, these efforts have solely been based on out-going content. For example, the company’s activity on these platforms have been solely informative rather than interactive in nature. As such, Amazin’Graze has not been able to fully tap on the potential of social media engagement. This has also led to a lack of proper measurable engagement which have not allowed the company to back better-informed decisions in terms of strategy.
Project goals
The main goal of our project would be to increase the brand presence with the use of social media thereby increasing sales and sustainability of the business.
With the company’s mission and vision, social media can be utilised to shape brand identity through storytelling. We thus aim to better communicate the company’s vision to its target audience.
Ultimately, we hope to fulfill Amazin’Graze’s mission of building an online community that encourages healthy living by also creating awareness of the availability of affordable healthy snacks.
Methodology
We aim to conduct a field study by surveying the working population on their snacking patterns. To get a deeper insight on consumers’ taste and preference as well as their experience with Amazin’Graze, we hope to also conduct a focus group session with some of them. In addition, an interview with the Managing Director of Amazin’Graze Singapore would certainly help us improve and strengthen their current media strategies. In the area of secondary research, we will be looking through various online food forums to gather consumer sentiments about ‘healthy snack’ and their experience with Amazin’Graze and their competitors.
Conclusion
Despite existing competitors in the market, the product flavours offered by Amazin’Graze are unique and the use of social media platforms increases the legitimacy of brand quality. We believe that Amazin’Graze can truly utilise the power of social media influence to create a strong brand image, increase publicity and market presence in Singapore, Malaysia and HongKong.
By: Amanda Tan, Isabel Lim & Celestine Chun (G1)
Marketing communication 