Case study

The Plug

The Plug is made from 100% natural ingredients that work together to help you wake up hangover-free, refreshed, and ready to hustle.

strategy
branding & packaging
web build
lifecycle marketings

The Plug is made from 100% natural ingredients that work together to help you wake up hangover-free, refreshed, and ready to hustle.
the plug bottle

Challenge

The Plug came to Hawke to launch a crowdfunding campaign for a brand new product in an extremely competitive vertical.

Approach

  • Ideate and produce a brand book not only for packaging purposes but also to extend to the site and all external marketing efforts
  • Produce all photos and imagery on site
  • Create a pre-crowdfunding campaign strategy to ensure a timely and powerful launch

strategy

Launching any product in today’s noisy marketplace is a feat in itself. The Plug presented the specific challenge of entering the crowded CPG space with established competition. After diving into quantitative and qualitative competitive data, the Strategy team was able to produce messaging and positioning for prospective audiences to complement their unique selling propositions.

Based on established target audiences and messaging hierarchy, a full pre- and post-launch go-to-market strategy was developed. This strategy included a full channelization plan for each step of the marketing funnel to ensure diverse-yet-consistent touchpoints across the customer journey.

hand holding a bottle
the plug box

branding & packaging

Another challenge for the Plug was creating a unique and memorable packaging experience that combined simple design and a fresh take on a hangover solution. A pop of color, simple wordmark, and consistent branded elements lend to a guilt-free hangover cure that anyone can be seen throwing back when it’s time to celebrate.

web build

The Plug had a two-phase launch: the crowdfunding campaign and then the official product launch. The goal of the engagement was to build a website that would be effective for both purposes.The homepage was to dual as a landing page that would guide the user down a visual flow of information to understand the key values of the product.

Following best practices, we introduced The Plug with captivating brand photography and straight-to-the-point messaging stating what the product can achieve for the customer. In the next section, we highlight the featured product funneling them to the product page for conversion. If the user continues to scroll, they are introduced to the product ingredients, broken down into an easily digestible format and communicating the benefit of each individual ingredient.

Afterward, testimonials are showcased to establish social proof and trust with the user. The testimonials lead into the About section, which introduces the co-founders and humanizes the brand as a whole.

The final sections of the homepage are grounded with a newsletter signup, fostering a growing brand community. At the very end, a final call to action towards the Product Detail guides their audience to conversions.

the plug web page
rows of the plug bottles

lifecycle marketing

Building a foundation for automation and campaigns to support the crowdfunding launch, Hawke started to grow their email list prior to the launch date and kept subscribers engaged leading up to the day of the launch.
increased email subscriber growth

%

crowdfunding goal within

Results

Results

increased email subscriber growth

%

crowdfunding goal within