How Magic Spoon Disrupted the Cereal Category & Targeted Millennials

Key Takeaways

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Organic Social Tactic — Partner with Brands that Target the Same Consumer: Consider partnering with brands outside of your product category or industry who have the same target audience to launch campaigns or host joint giveaways. Magic Spoon partnered up with Banza, a plant-based chickpea pasta brand, for an April Fool’s campaign. Vegan brands and Magic Spoon both target the health-conscious consumer, which presented a great opportunity to reach new consumers.

SMS Marketing Tactic  — Provide Product Updates via Text: As part of Magic Spoon’s April Fool’s campaign, the brand asked consumers to input their phone numbers to get VIP early access to new flavors, and order updates. When launching an SMS campaign, make sure you get permission from your customer base before sending texts. Since SMS is an intimate and immediate form of communication, make sure the content you are sending is valuable such as VIP deals or exclusive content. Open rates for text messages can be as high as 98%, showcasing a whitespace opportunity.  

Podcast Advertising Tactic — Provide Podcast Hosts with Affiliate Links: Magic Spoon provided their podcast partners with affiliate links where listeners received free shipping and a 100% happiness guarantee. Podcast marketing is an effective way to acquire new customers as the ads are read by trusted hosts, and podcast listeners are highly engaged and therefore less likely to skip ads. 

Podcast Marketing Tactic — Search Ads: Magic Spoon runs search ads mentioning their podcast partners such as Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan. Search ads include keywords such as “Recommended by Tim Ferriss” and “Featured on the Joe Rogan Experience” to add credibility to the testimonials. 
Influencer Tactic — Product Seeding Strategy: Rather than paying influencers upfront, Magic Spoon executes a product seeding strategy where they send free boxes of cereal to micro and macro influencers. The brand works with a variety of influencers including fitness, fashion, and kid influencers as well as celebrities such as Questlove.

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Magic Spoon, a high protein low-calorie cereal product, officially launched in Canada in February 2021.

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Magic Spoon targets the millennial demographic who seek the nostalgic flavours of their favorite childhood cereal but are looking for healthier breakfast options.

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Since launch, monthly web traffic in Canada increased by +85% and hit an all-time high at 139K site visits in March 2021.

70% of total web traffic in Canada for magicspoon.com is driven by mobile devices.

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Social media drives the highest percentage of site traffic at 27% after Organic Search and Direct.

Magic Spoon’s top 3 marketing channels that drive brand awareness and customer acquisition are:

1. Social Media Marketing

Magic Spoon focuses their organic and paid social media marketing efforts on Instagram, followed by Facebook.

2. Podcast Advertising

Co-founder Gabi Lewis said in an interview that podcast advertising is one of Magic Spoon’s top acquisition channels.

3. Influencer Marketing & Product Seeding

Rather than paying influencers to create sponsored posts, Magic Spoon sends free products to various micro to macro-level influencers to spread brand awareness.

79% of Magic Spoon’s organic social following is from Instagram, followed by Facebook. Magic Spoon currently does not have a presence on YouTube or TikTok.

1. Social Media Marketing

On Instagram, Magic Spoon partnered up with Banza, a plant-based chickpea pasta brand, for an April Fool’s campaign. Vegan brands and Magic Spoon both target the health-conscious consumer, which presents an opportunity to tap into each other’s audiences

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As part of the April Fool’s campaign, Magic Spoon launched an SMS marketing campaign that included a link in bio where followers could input their phone number to receive VIP early access to new flavors, order updates, and more.

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Magic Spoon’s organic social content is timely with an element of humour, which resonates with the millennial audience. When a story of a consumer who found shrimp tails in his cereal made headlines, Magic Spoon published a post with the caption “does not contain shrimp” the very next day.

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Magic Spoon refers to their consumers as spoon(ers), and the brand consistently reposts user-generated content via Instagram stories, creating a sense of community.

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Magic Spoon allocates 100% of their ad budget towards Instagram ads. In January 2021, the brand increased their monthly budget significantly by +186% MoM from $79K to $227K.

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Top Instagram ads include live video testimonials of consumers eating a bowl of cereal as well as testimonials in the form of a quote.

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Instagram ads directly compare Magic Spoon’s protein and net carbs with competitor products to educate new consumers.

2. Podcast Advertising

According to co-founder Gabi Lewis, podcast marketing is one of their top acquisition channels. Magic Spoon runs ads on podcast channels such as The Tim Ferriss Show and The Joe Rogan Experience.

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Why is podcast marketing so effective? 

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Magic Spoon provides their podcast partners with an affiliate code where listeners can receive free shipping and a 100% happiness guarantee.

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Magic Spoon currently runs search ads mentioning podcast partners such as Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan. Search ads include keywords such as “Recommended by Tim Ferriss” and “Featured on the JRE” to add credibility to the testimonials.  

3. Influencer Marketing

Magic Spoon has implemented a product seeding strategy where they send free samples of their product to both micro and macro-influencers.

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Magic Spoon sends products to a variety of influencers, including fitness, fashion and kid influencers. The brand also partners up with bloggers to host giveaways.

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Celebrity fans have helped strengthen brand awareness for the brand. Questlove, a professional musician, posted about his love for Magic Spoon cereal on Instagram. Shortly after, Magic Spoon got in touch and Questlove became an investor in the company.

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