Are You Feeling Fruity?

Boost Juice is an Australian retail company which specialises in healthy fruit juices.  Boost Juice was founded in 2000 by founder Janine Allis with co-founder Jeff Allis in Melbourne.  There was a gap in the drinks market for a healthy alternative to fizzy drinks which Janine filled remarkable well and has created a thriving business from this original concept where her friends invested $250,000 in her plans. Since then, her business has grown from strength to strength with expansion of juice bars across the continents with about 300 stores operating worldwide. Boost Juices also extended its product line with the introduction of smoothies, yoghurts, fruit and muesli bars.

Janine is considered a role model, not just for woman in business, through having a business model that has proven successful here in Australian and also in the international marketplace. She won numerous awards over the past 14 years such as ARA Retailer of the year 2007, AMEX Franchisor of the Year in 2005, Telstra’s Australian Business Woman of the Year 2004 and her most recent feather in her cap is achieving 24th place in BRW Rich Women 2014 list. 

With the success of the juice bars, she created a parent company called Retail Zoo and expanded her business into different sectors such as Mexican Salsa fast food and coffee shops with Cibo Espresso.  In 2010, The Riverside Company, a US based firm acquired 65% stake in the group.  She has been in the media limelight recently as questions arose as to her commitment to remain with her business.  She discusses with the Australian Financial Review (AFR) of how she won’t sell her business but that has all changed in the last couple of months as the AFR article explains how Bain Capital partners with Janine Allis to buy Boost Juice, for a tidy sum which was worth the original investment 14 years ago. 

Go Bananas with Social Technologies!

Janine Allis can be quoted from her self-published book, A Bit about Boost 2011 on their website with “We are on the forefront of the ‘social media’ and industry leading in the IT sector in Retailing”.  From the McKinsey Global Institute 2012, we can see that the retail sector is one of the larger players in the aspect of adopting social technologies – 

Sourced from McKinsey Global Institute 2012

So is the proof in the zest or the fruit in the juice? How has Boost Juice demonstrated this adoption and how has this been used to the company’s advantage?

One of key factors in Boost Juice’s business model is the market segment that Janine has positioned Boost Juice for, which is young people under 25.  She utilises unique marketing campaigns by using both traditional, television and radio, and the latest modern campaign developments which she has kept abreast of over the past 14 years and continually moved with the trends rather than becoming a ‘rotten fruit’.

What did aiming for this market segment bring? A great channel for her marketing strategies which includes the use of social media technologies which has been central to its success.  She has positioned herself in the market place, to target an audience of young 25 year olds who are social media savvy in which she has built loyal customer relationships, and thereby increasing Boost Juice’s customer base and increasing the bottom line sales.

Boost Juice has the usual ‘fruit bowl mix’ of social media tools with their main website supported by Boost Juice Facebook, Boost Juice Oz Twitter, Boost Juice Instagram which have 255,556 likes, 4977 followers, 15174 followers respectively.  They also have a BoostAustralia YouTube channel. Changes have been adopted even down to the paper advertisement poster whose day has come to an end with the advances in digital signage that they have implemented storewide.

Their latest foray into capturing customers is by creating the Boost Juice Apple application and the equivalent android application to replace plastic loyalty cards for their Boost Juice Vibe loyalty program.  Brand loyalty is a strong strategy of Boost Juice and they are making their products more freely available to customers through smart devices.  But these applications are more than just a digital loyalty card and allow for customer orders and payments.  The product is sold before the customer even enters the shop door!  These applications will give instant sales and customer data to the company about customer demand which will help in demand forecasting, by realising the trends and assist them in their sales and operations with the planning of product supplies and people management.

Under the fruit skin …

Boost Juice’s main website is the hub of their internal activities and functions, it shows the company’s technologies which are used by employees for store management, and communications from the shop assistant to the franchisee. Boost Juice is using technologies, including social media, to provide enterprise wide business application support by improving collaboration and communication across the Boost Juice community.  

Comparing Apples and Oranges?

What value does social technologies bring to Boost Juice as an organisation?  McKinsey Global Institute 2012 report breaks down the 10 value levers across the organisational functions:

10 Value Levers sourced from McKinsey Global Institute 2012

From these levers, Boost Juice appears to utilising several of them but this article will concentrate on the one that they use to their best advantage which is marketing and sales and is used to-

• Derive customer insights
• Use social technologies for marketing communication/interaction
• Generate and foster sales leads

From the use of their social media tools, they have availed of customer insights through customer interaction and feedback via forums such as Facebook and Twitter. Boost Juice has listened to what their customers want and applied this to their stores and franchises which has brought them a huge success.  They have used these insights for their product development as they have expanded their product line to include smoothies, fruit, etc and created marketing campaigns that have captured their customers’ attention such as ‘What’s Ya Name Game’ which has led to an increase in their customer base and their sales. 

Boost Juice utilise their communication channels with social media to its highest value and most recently with the innovative development of their smart device applications which not alone creates another communication channel but can also generates and fosters sales leads. As McKinsey Global Institute 2012 report has predicted that “social technologies will also take an increasing role at the point of purchase in stores” (McKinsey, 2012, p.67, para 3), this has indeed happened for Boost Juice with the launch of their smart device applications.  This also compliments and enriches their current customer dataset which can be analysed for further customer insights.

So, when comparing apples with apples, and oranges with oranges, Boost Juice is a great success story in the retail sector. Its underlying use of social technologies have brought this success about.