‘Our value is your time’: Inside Edible’s quest to become a more contemporary brand
Edible, formerly known as Edible Arrangements, is a haven for last-minute gift-givers. In fact, according to Edible CMO Kevin Keith, 85% of its transactions are same-day or next-day.
In turn, a big focus for Edible is encouraging people to gift its products during more than just big occasions, like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day. Instead, Keith said, Edible wants people to gift its products for more everyday moments — like “if you need to say you’re sorry, really fast,” he said, or as a way to treat yourself.
“What we’re trying to do is break more frequency through giving people more reasons to transact us and celebrate,” Keith said during a session at the Modern Retail Marketing Summit in Santa Barbara, California on Wednesday.
Part of the way that Edible has sought to do that is through a rebrand. Roughly three years ago, Edible dropped the “Arrangements” part of its name in order to promote some of its other offerings. Edible now delivers dessert boards, flowers and cookies among other gifts.
Marketing, of course, has also been critical to reinventing customers’ perceptions of Edible. Historically, Keith said, Edible had never really invested in upper funnel marketing. “We were really more of a mid- to lower-funnel investments from a marketing standpoint,” he said.
Last fall, Edible launched a brand campaign called “There’s an Edible for That,” highlighting all of the moments when people may want to send or receive an Edible arrangement, like after escaping from an awkward family dinner.
Additionally, Keith estimated that he probably shifted 40% of Edible’s marketing budget to influencers and built an in-house team around it. On the paid side, some of the influencers the brand works with highlight some of the niche holidays one might celebrate with an Edible arrangement, like National Bosses Day or National Dessert Day, using the hashtag EdibleMoments. Edible is also doing more with podcasting, Keith said.
Given Edible’s focus on next-day and same-day deliveries, the company is also focused on building out the infrastructure to support that, Keith said. Eighty percent of the brand’s transactions are through mobile, and it will be launching a new app next year. The brand is also working to innovate its delivery infrastructure.
Lastly, refreshing its stores is a big focus for Edible. The brand has nearly 800 of them, many of them franchised — and the goal, Keith said, is to “get people to think of us differently for our stores.” Edible is looking to relocate more of its stores away from so-called Class C locations and into more mixed-use developments. Edible is also redesigning some stores, adding some components like cafes and bringing some of the back-of-the-house operations upfront so that people can, for example, see their gift baskets or fruit platters being made.
All of this adds up to a long list of to-dos in Keith’s quest to bring a more contemporary appeal to Edible. He acknowledged that he would like to simplify the company’s offerings even further — he said Edible has reduced its SKU count by 50% — and instead make it a much more personalized process. That is, give customers much more choice over what exact fruit or desserts go into their arrangement or platter.
Ultimately, Keith said, the goal with all of these efforts is to reinforce how much time and effort goes into making Edible’s offerings, and remind people what they get out of giving Edible as a gift.
“Our value is your time,” Keith said. “We have a unique advantage in that when you give to somebody from us, you’re not getting a pile of boxes at your door from Amazon.”