Sprouts Farmers Market to increase digital spend as it expands (Score 65)

Sales lead: Reach out if you can help this company improve brand awareness. 

• Sprouts Farmers Market disclosed in its Q2 2023 earnings report that it plans to increase marketing spend to improve brand awareness.
  • The company now allocates 80% of its budget toward digital channels. 
  • It is also working to improve personalization and encourage customer loyalty. 
• Sprouts has opened 14 new stores this year with 30 total planned for 2023. 
  • The company currently has 100 approved new stores.
  • Its goal is 10% unit growth per year beginning in 2024. 

Target demographic: Millennials seeking healthy & organic options

The company will likely:

• Ramp up promotional activity for new locations
• Keep increasing ad spend
• Seek additional agency assistance

Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)

• YTD spend: Sprouts spent nearly $25.7k on national TV ads YTD after not investing in this channel during the same time period of 2022.
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend fell from $60.6k in 2021 to $11.5k in 2022. 
• Ad programming: It placed ads during programming such as College Softball, KTLA 5 Morning News at 7, KTLA 5 Morning News at 6, 2021 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, and 2021 NCAA Basketball Tournament. 

Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)

• YTD spend: Sprouts spent approximately $9.3m on digital display ads YTD, a 41% increase from $6.6m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2022. 
• YTD data: 1.3b impressions via Facebook (30%), YouTube (27%), Instagram (15%), desktop display (13%), mobile display (9%), and desktop video (7%).   
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend increased by 8% from $13.1m in 2021 to $14.2m in 2022. 
• Ad location: It placed 91% of these ads directly onto sites such as facebook.com, youtube.com, instagram.com, yahoo.com, and aol.com. It placed 9% of these ads through multiple indirect channels onto sites such as yahoo.com, msn.com, stack.com, dailymail.co.uk, and fandom.com. 

Additional channel insights  

• Vivvix: Sprouts also utilizes OOH, radio, and local broadcast. 
• Top podcasts sponsored: InvestTalk.

Agency analysis:

• Opportunity: Keep reaching out to the new CMO we told you about late last year to see if you can provide any assistance. 
• Current roster:
  • NitroC Group: creative
  • In-house: creative & media