Royal Apple expands from Europe to the US with Microsoft Advertising

Background

Royal Apple,a Poland-based company, exports all-natural, cold-pressed apple juice from their orchards in Poland, which are among the largest in Europe. What makes them different is their savory flavors — a mix of sweet and sour apples due to Poland’s unique climate — and their preservative-free products made for a healthy lifestyle. What started as a family-owned business with big goals in 2011 became a well-known brand in Europe. Three years ago, they decided to begin their expansion journey into the US market to reach a wider audience. This expansion included a rebranding campaign.

A small business with big goals

Royal Apple’s marketing rebranding campaign strategy included keyword ads to engage their target audience — health-conscious consumers in the US — to be known as a healthy alternative to other sugary options on the market. Search advertising fits nicely into their overall campaign as a tool to drive brand awareness and increase sales.

New opportunities bring new challenges

Royal Apple's initial rebranding efforts were leading in the right direction. Originally, they had planned on selling to distributors and directly to consumers by making their products available in physical storefronts. They became the exclusive apple juice supplier of a company that provides food catering services to cross-country hotels. They also established partnerships with hotels in Manhattan and participated in successful trade shows.

Unfortunately, the onset of the pandemic forced them to change direction when distributors assessed their risks and refused to work with new companies. With this, Royal Apple had to pivot; they began focusing on engaging consumers via their website and through large online retailers. But this new strategy brought challenges of limited brand recognition by the target customer in the intended market, so they had to find better and more efficient marketing opportunities to get their name out. They noticed that a large percentage of their web traffic was coming from Microsoft Edge, so they decided to give Microsoft Advertising a try.

The value of Microsoft Advertising

Royal Apple began its campaign with paid search ads to drive awareness. After that, they were approached by the Microsoft Advertising team about piloting a new set of tools called Multi-platform campaigns. Multi-platform campaigns are a unified solution allowing advertisers to manage their search advertising and social network presence all in one place. This solution includes user-friendly tools for small businesses looking to connect with new customers across leading advertising platforms such as Microsoft Advertising, Google, Meta, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The approach using Multi-platform campaigns is simple; companies enter the business URL and advertising goals, and Microsoft does the rest. In other words, it automatically creates a campaign based on the website content, which users can review and edit at any time, and allows them to opt in to serve ads on multiple platforms, therefore increasing their reach. Microsoft Advertising doesn’t charge management or service fees or commissions with the tools, and users only pay for their ad spend.

Up until that point, Royal Apple had been running its marketing campaign in-house. So having a user-friendly Microsoft Advertising solution that provided ease of access and the ability to use the tools without additional staff was exactly what they needed. The tools also allowed them to easily interact with customers across different social media platforms.

Royal Apple also benefited from the multi-platform organic social media reporting, which helped them see their insights and metrics in one place.

Since they only had distributors in the New York Tri-State area, their first campaign focused on the Northeast to help them raise brand awareness in that region. The Microsoft Advertising account team supported their efforts with keyword improvements and suggestions for each campaign to make them more specific and relevant to reach the right audience. In this case, that includes moms thinking of their children’s wellbeing and health-conscious consumers, as well as those driven by childhood nostalgia of flavorful apple juice. They've also launched in-store demos, but digital marketing remained the focus of their overall strategy, with online engagement as their main priority.