In this episode of Connected Thinking, Shannon Farmer, our Senior Campaign Manager, sits down with Toni Ehrnreich, Head of Marketing at BOL Foods - a plant-powered food brand on a mission to create tasty, nutritious meals without compromise.
With over seven years’ experience in FMCG challenger brands, Toni has played a key role in shifting BOL Foods from a product-first approach to a more aspirational, lifestyle-led way of marketing.
Together they chat about:
- Why virality shouldn't be your only measure of success
- The role of community management in safeguarding your brand
- How to build an impactful B2C LinkedIn strategy
- Why the comments section is the biggest goldmine for challenger brands
BOL's organic content has shifted from being largely product-led to more aspirational, lifestyle-driven storytelling. What prompted this pivot, and what key changes have you noticed in how your audience engages with your content as a result?
It is really interesting because the landscape of social has evolved a lot. I started off as a content creator, and back then it was enough as a brand to put out a very aesthetic grid full of product shots, and that generated engagement. But now we have clearly seen the shift. There are shorter attention spans and a much higher demand for video content. First and foremost, it is a social platform, and you need to be part of genuine cultural moments and social conversations.
We as a team have pivoted away from aesthetic grids that are product-heavy and tried to tap into what our audience are talking about and what they are using the platform for, using our products as part of that storytelling where we keep the consumer as the hero. Rather than a static product shot where we talk about high protein or high fibre, we create more educational content around how to hit your fibre goals and use our products as part of a solution. We have found that this has generated much more engagement and reach than more classically advertising-led content.
Instagram is our core channel, but it takes time for the algorithm to understand who is genuinely engaging with your content. We have stuck to consistency and simplified things down to testing so that we could learn. Over time, we have built follower growth, engagement rates, commenting, and shares, which we did not previously see.
Earlier this year, you launched the Blueberry Power Shake with standout activations like the Glasto pop-up and the XL announcement. What inspired those ideas, and how did you turn them into organic traction on social?
I am really glad you have seen that. Blueberry was a flavour we were really excited about. There is no other blueberry shake in the protein drink or nutritionally complete meal space in the UK where we are operating, and we knew it had that kind of social-worthy flavour edge.
It started with what was happening at the moment it was launching. It was summertime. What are our audience doing, what are they talking about, what do they care about at that moment. Festivals were getting momentum, and with a festival like Glastonbury, there is FOMO around who got a ticket and who did not. We knew there was conversation around that.
It was a simple connection of Glastonbury and berry, and a moment to tap into that, directly tied to the use for this product. For our power shake, it is a meal on the go, made with real ingredients, perfect when you do not have time to cook or want a breakfast that is healthy rather than something indulgent.
Festival-goers going to the festival, jumping on the tube, are going to need something to keep them going for the journey, or they miss breakfast when trying to catch their coach. So it was a perfect moment to offer our power shake and tap into that Glastonbury fervour.
Instagram and TikTok are the obvious priorities for many FMCG brands, but we've also seen BOL stand out on LinkedIn, particularly with thought leadership, brand announcements, and employee-driven content. What advice would you give to consumer brands looking to build a meaningful LinkedIn strategy?
The first place to start is having a clear understanding of who the audience on LinkedIn is that you are trying to engage with. Previously we used LinkedIn as a personal PR machine, shouting out key brand wins like being stocked in a new retailer or launching a new product.
It is about understanding whether the audience is retailers or prospective retailers, talent you are looking to recruit, or general professionals you want to engage with as consumers. There may be many audience groups, but it is important to be clear on that and what your objectives are.
Then think about what content they genuinely enjoy engaging with and why they are on the platform. If you are using LinkedIn as a place to recruit talent, you could put out a post that says we are a great place to work, or you could lean into storytelling and feature an employee in a day in the life piece of content, showing them navigating their job and bringing that culture to life.
It is about identifying who you are trying to reach, what message you want them to know, and how you can place that message within a format that engages with what they want to watch or read.
Online conversations around ultra-processed foods can be sensitive, with influencers and consumers quick to critique ingredients. How do you approach influencer partnerships to establish relevance and authority in that space?
For BOL as a brand, we are all about making it easy for busy people to eat well. Everything we make is high protein, high fibre, made with real plant-powered ingredients. To build credibility, we want to work with nutritionists or people who are leaders in food and health conversations. We prefer to work with qualified people who understand the nuances of nutrition and represent a balanced, moderate view, not people who are pushing fads or extremes.
Our products are made for real life, and real life is not perfect. You strive for balance and to eat real ingredients most of the time, but sometimes life gets busy or you are eating for pleasure. It is about embracing all of those moments. We are not about making people feel bad for the food choices they make. We are about making it easier to eat well and maintaining a positive nutrition space rather than a negative one.
For us, it is about being on top of our community management and being honest. We do not have a strict safeguarding process, but we are very on it with community management. When something happens, for example someone saying our products are full of sugar when they are naturally low sugar and have no added sugar, our response is to follow up with a message in a positive and friendly way, gently correcting that it is not the case.
A lot of the time when someone calls out a brand, people go to the comments, and they look for the brand to respond. As long as we are quick and clear, that is how we make sure the true messages come through.
With your recent international expansion, how is your content strategy evolving? Will you adapt storytelling for local markets, or focus on maintaining one consistent global brand voice?
We have just launched in the Netherlands, and that is the first international launch for the brand. The product we have launched is our power shakes, a ready-to-drink nutritionally complete meal. In the UK, it is a more established market. People understand what a nutritionally complete meal is, although there is still room for growth. There is also a perception that some products in that space are very artificial. We are carving out our position as a natural, nutritionally complete meal.
In a new market like the Netherlands, it is much more in its infancy. In the UK, we are pioneering a message about offering an alternative made from real ingredients. In the Netherlands, we are establishing what the product is and positioning it as something better than a protein shake, which is more established in that market. So we are using different messaging and focusing more on early education in that new market.
In terms of local culture, we are at the beginning of that journey. We have a strong brand in the UK and a clear global voice, but best in class for us is adapting our marketing calendar to local moments. The Dutch are known as being quite healthy, with a lot of cycling and outdoor activity. So when we position the product, we keep the heart of the brand, the celebration of life and making it easy to eat well, but lean into local trends and events so it resonates with the Dutch audience rather than copying UK content across.
There's so much pressure for brands to "go viral." How do you define success on social today and what metrics do you look into?
We are very happy that we have gone viral twice this year. It feels like something you want to have on your list. The virality piece is interesting because the metrics we value in social are genuinely reaching our community and seeing engagement build, things like comments, likes, shares, saves, and follower growth. It is more valuable for us to reach fewer people who are genuinely interested in what we are putting out, what our brand stands for, and the products that we make, rather than having a video generate millions of views that have nothing to do with the product.
We have had two videos go viral, and one of them was a video on a running machine on TikTok with a split screen effect where it looked like legs were dismembered from the body. It was visually arresting and generated loads of comments. The power shake was in the shot and it helped create buzz. We could share it with retailers and say we had gone viral, so it had a purpose.
But people were engaging with that content not because of the product or the brand, but because of the effect. It does create buzz and hype around the brand, but it does not grow our brand or translate into people buying it.
It has a role, but for us it is about consistency. We are not looking for one-off moments. We want to build a genuine community over time through valuable engagement.
In a category where many brands play it safe, what's one risk you've taken on social that really paid off?
I cannot take credit for this one. This is down to my team. It was another TikTok viral video where a bowl of our power soup is shown and our employee Elle is dunking into it in a very aggressive way and shovelling a sandwich into her mouth, dripping with soup. There is a call to action on the screen asking people to share their dirtiest food secret.
For a brand like BOL, which is more aesthetic and curated, putting something out that was the opposite of that felt like a risk. There was a question of whether it was right for the brand. We put it out there, and it went viral. People were commenting with their food habits and it created a lot of conversation.
What it highlighted for us is that there is space in our brand to have fun. It is not about perfection, and we can have those moments with our audience. It also showed that TikTok is a platform for trying things and seeing what works without taking yourself too seriously. The video reached one million views.
As a brand, we could take more risks and we are still on that journey. It is about pushing ourselves to create content that drives conversation and has a share-worthy factor. If it is something people want to share or talk about, it will go further than just putting out brand messages without connection.
Talking about communities on socials, is this something that you really want to bring into real life, or is it something you do already?
We have a community programme called Friends of BOL. These are people who genuinely engage with the brand, people who have posted UGC and are actively replying to our posts. They are people who love the brand that we invite to be part of our inner circle community.
That takes shape in multiple ways, sending them products early to review and give feedback, and getting their opinion on marketing campaigns and what we could be doing better. As a challenger brand, we do not have a huge budget for insights, so speaking to our community and learning what they love or want to improve is really valuable. We want to keep that as a giving relationship, not just asking them for things, but including them and bringing them into our events.
In the summer months, we do fitness and wellness festivals. Inviting them to events and meeting them in person is a way to strengthen that relationship. We have also done smaller moments, like when someone reached out saying they eat our product cold too, and we created a personalised version for them. That created a nice storytelling moment that we shared on LinkedIn and it got strong engagement.
Those authentic moments with the community feel more powerful and meaningful than working with a big influencer and placing a product in their hand for an ad. It is about using the community in a more genuine way.
Favourite book or podcast you'd recommend?
It is How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp. It is a great fundamental in terms of marketing principles, especially if you have not had classic marketing training. It simplifies and gives the science behind growing a brand. So for me it would absolutely be that one.
Best piece of advice you've received?
I will go for a personal one. Always be yourself, not a second best version of somebody else.
