Jazmyn Williams, The Honey Pot Company | Modern Retail Vanguard 2024
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When Jazmyn Williams joined The Honey Pot Company as director of brand marketing in January 2023, the company had successfully entered 38,000 doors at key chains like Walmart and Target.
But the startup – which sells hygiene washes, menstrual pads and other plant-derived feminine care products – only had a household penetration rate of around 3.5%. “When 50% of the population could be using at least one of your products – there’s a lot of upside,” Williams says.
It was an exciting challenge for Williams a Meta and Coca-Cola alum, to figure out how to get people who have been buying from Kotex or Tampax for years to switch to a startup.
To get products from The Honey Pot in the hands of more people, Williams has spearheaded a number of sampling opportunities. Shortly after she came on board, The Honey Pot hosted a stage session at the Momference, a conference for millennial moms of color, and did a bathroom product takeover.
“It was a way for us to show up in our core community,” Williams says, as attendees talked about how they had heard of the brand before, but hadn’t used it, or didn’t know all of the products it sold.
The Honey Pot also did some sampling through a vending machine startup at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz stadium for six months last year. Williams positioned it as a more premium experience for people accustomed to digging around in their purse to find a quarter so they could get a cheap tampon from a bathroom dispenser. It helped that during those six months, Beyoncé held multiple shows at the stadium as part of her Renaissance World Tour, putting The Honey Pot Company in front of more than 150,000 fans.
In June, The Honey Pot became the exclusive body care partner of the Atlanta Dream, a first-of-its kind partnership in the WNBA. As part of the partnership, The Honey Pot stocked the Dream’s locker room with products gave samples to fans at select home games, and donated items to an elementary school that the team sponsors, among other initiatives. Williams was excited at the chance to go above and beyond the typical branding sponsorship and show the Dream and their fans that “this partner really cares about us, and not just the signage in the arena”; one video on The Honey Pot’s Instagram showcased the emotional reaction players had to seeing their locker room decked out.
Alongside all of these efforts, The Honey Pot’s household penetration is on track to hit 5% by the end of the year. Williams says it’s been a fun experience highlighting “products that typically live in dark places, under your sink and in your cabinet.”