We used influencers to celebrate Mānuka & help New Zealand's Egmont Honey make a splash in the UK

ClientEgmont Honey
scopeCampaigning \ Influencer

50%

Increase in sales

4.2%

Engagement rate

Bringing the versatility of Mānuka Honey to the masses

New Zealand brand, Egmont Honey, wanted to not only tap into the UK market with their premium, high-grade Mānuka honey, but also establish themselves as the leading Mānuka honey brand among Brits by showing how easy it is to incorporate a spoonful into your daily routine.

As part of the strategy for this campaign, we recruited a broad range of influencers from the health, wellness, food and music verticals, to show just how versatile Mānuka could be. As part of the campaign brief, we asked influencers to create their own honey ‘hack’ and call out an exclusive promotion available through Holland & Barrett. The campaign resulted in driving almost 1M video views, over 36K engagements and accomplished an impressive engagement rate of 4.2%.

Mānuka Honey jar laid on a bed of flowers in pastel shades of light pink and yellow

Who are Egmont Honey?

Like many great things, Egmont Mānuka honey started with a small gesture – a gifted beehive. James Annabell gave his father, Toby, a beehive back in 2008, and this small act quickly sparked a passion for beekeeping & producing 100% pure Mānuka honey, leading to the thriving family business we see today.

Egmont Honey is based in the remote Egmont National Park in New Zealand’s North Island, located under the imposing, snow-capped Mount Taranaki on land once cleared by European settlers for beef farming. The Annabell’s have since returned the land to its previous wilder state, encouraging the re-generation of Mānuka bushes and the growth of the region’s bee population. In doing so, they are paying respects to both the magic of Mānuka Honey and to the Māori people who long-cherished its special properties.

Photo of the hands of a bee keeper obtaining a section of honeycomb from a hive while thousands of honey bees buzz around them

A photo of a yellow beehive in a field with tall grass and a forest in the distant background

A side shot of a beekeeper in full protective white clothing, preparing to pull out a section of beehive honeycomb

A shot of a bearded man in a lab with hair net preparing some tools used for testing the honey

A shot of a man in a warehouse. He's up a ladder next to two giant chrome vats of honey. He appears to be about to open one of them

A close up shot of some equipment. A row of four chrome cylinders with nozzles. They are depositing honey in to jars

A hand holding a bottle of Mānuka Honey. The bottle is dark brown glass with a light brown label. On the label is a black illustration of a mountain, reflecting the company's New Zealand location

Mānuka my way

The campaign had two main focuses; firstly, we wanted influencers to highlight the different ways consumers could add a spoonful of delicious Mānuka honey into their daily routine by creating easy-to-recreate hacks and secondary to this, we wanted to reach new audiences to help drive sales and awareness of Egmont at Holland & Barrett.

Two mobile phone at an angle showing a woman and her two children eating toast with Mānuka honey on it

What we did

To encapsulate everything Egmont Honey stood for and the key objectives for the campaign, we created a concept that would not only drive sales to Holland & Barrett using the exclusive promotion, but also grow Mānuka Honey as a category in the UK, by recruiting and resonating with Mānuka enthusiasts. The concept behind the campaign hashtag #MānukaMyWay, was to build a community of brand advocates and encourage creators to embrace the individualistic ways they like to consume Mānuka.

We combined our knowledge of the UK market with our access to thousands of quality micro & mid-tier influencers for this campaign so we could ensure only the best talent selection. To align with the category growth objective and to build awareness, we recruited passionate influencers from different categories such as athletes & musicians, to ensure a diverse range of content was produced outside of health, wellness & food categories we generally see across Instagram & TikTok.

From face masks & delicious mocktails, to granola bars & protein shakes, the influencers successfully captured the versatility of Mānuka Honey by embracing #ManukaMyWay in their own individual styles and reflecting the key aspects of Egmont’s personality.

A slightly out of focus lady eating toast in a white dress. The chair is also white. In the foreground is a round concave wooden table showing a jar of Mānuka Honey

the results

The influencer content performed amazingly, resulting in the #MānukaMyWay campaign driving almost 1M video views, over 36K engagements and a 4.2% engagement rate. It performed significantly well on Instagram in particular, with the reels content seeing a huge view rate of 169% - completely exceeding benchmarks!

As well as generating a spike in brand awareness, the content also had a huge impact on product sales, with the number of units sold at Holland & Barrett increasing by 46% and revenue up 32%. Highlighting just how relevant the content was to the audiences targeted!

The campaign did an excellent job of raising Egmont’s profile in the UK, and they now see influencers as an integral part of their UK marketing strategy.

A montage of people at home enjoying Mānuka honey

A montage of phones at a 45 degree angle against a mustard yellow background. They show images of people sharing Mānuka honey photos from their social media accounts

“Reaching the UK market was a huge achievement for us and The Pull Agency helped execute that brilliantly with the launch of this campaign! Despite being initially sceptical about using influencers, the team really encapsulated everything we stand for with the campaign concept. They delivered some excellent results and we were thrilled with the content produced! We’re very excited to continue working together in the future.”

Shaan Davis - Marketing & Brand Manager at Egmont Honey