OSTRIM
How Brand Strategy Grew a Category Original's Sales by 22%
OSTRIM had been the original high-protein exotic meat snack since 1996, but their brand strategy wasn't making the case.
OSTRIM had been the original high-protein exotic meat snack since 1996, built around ostrich and elk before either was a category. Their products were on shelves at GNC, Vitamin Shoppe, LA Fitness, and national retailers. The track record was real. None of it was coming through.
When Protos Foods brought Deep Varnish in, the website was doing what a lot of brand websites do. It described the products without making a case for them. Product pages listed what was in the stick but didn't explain what made it different. Photography was functional. Reviews were nearly nonexistent. What they had built and what the website communicated were two different things.
Services provided:
Creative Direction
Brand Strategy
Marketing Strategy
SEO/SEM
A Brand Story Worth Telling Again
The marketing audit was straightforward. Page titles were pulled from product names. Meta descriptions repeated the headline. Product copy opened with a nutrition claim written for a spec sheet, not a shopper.
The health and wellness snack market had gotten crowded fast. Country Archer, EPIC, and The New Primal had sharper personalities and photography that showed people what it felt like to eat the product. OSTRIM had real advantages. Exotic protein, lower sodium, lower sugar, no nitrates, 25 years in the market. None of those advantages were visible on the page.
We developed a product description framework and showed Protos Foods what was possible. Each description led with the specific flavor profile and what a shopper actually wants to know, giving the team something they could apply across the entire line.
Visual Storytelling that Brought the Product to Life
The existing product images were clean but static. Pack shots on white showed what the stick looked like in its wrapper. Nothing showed anyone reaching for one after a workout or grabbing a box on the way out the door.
We helped vet photographers and built a shot list that gave Protos Foods images they could use across the website, social channels, and print collateral. Lifestyle photography went into the product thumbnails. The pages stopped looking like a warehouse catalog.
From First Impression to Purchase
OSTRIM had customers. Nobody had contacted them. We reached out to more than 100 directly and engaged active followers on Instagram. The site went from 3 reviews to 20 by year end. The reviews helped conversion and gave prospective customers a reason to trust the product.
The audit turned up something the line was missing. Prospective customers had no low-commitment way to try OSTRIM. Existing customers had no easy way to gift it. The solution was a mixed case sampler of the four best sellers. The pack launched in August and sold 54 units in its first four and a half months. A way in for new customers that didn't exist at the start of the year.
Average abandoned cart recovery on Shopify runs around 7%. OSTRIM finished 2019 at 15%. The work on product descriptions, photography, and messaging gave people a reason to return. A cart abandonment sequence closed it.