CATEGORY: BEVERAGE

Sanzo uses consumer data to drive 104% velocity growth at Walmart

COMPANY SIZE

Early Stage

CATEGORY

Beverage

USE CASE

Increase sales velocity

RETAILERS

Walmart logo

IMPACT AT A GLANCE

999

community members engaged on offer

371

reviews collected for syndication with an average 4.4/5 star rating

82%

new customer acquisition

79%

of shoppers intend to repurchase the product

Sanzo is redefining sparkling water by celebrating real, authentic Asian fruit flavors like calamansi, lychee, and yuzu. Founded with a passion for celebrating Asian heritage, the brand fills a crucial gap: bringing the rich, beloved flavors of Asian countries to modern palates using clean ingredients, free from the excess sugar and artificial additives often found in traditional legacy brands. Sanzo’s mission is to honor authenticity while meeting today’s demand for healthier, high-quality beverages.

We sat down with Adam Brion, VP of Sales, to discuss how Sanzo continues to bridge this cultural flavor gap and how they’ve partnered with Social Nature to connect with consumers looking for bold, global flavors in a healthier format.

What challenges was Sanzo facing before Social Nature, and how did our platform help?

Adam: A brand of our size, we don’t have a 100% household penetration, and for us, it’s really getting the feedback from the consumer. They vote with their dollars, and we can see that in syndicated data. But we had the opportunity to really do a Costco Roadshow and hear directly from consumers. Two things that came out of that were price point – we were definitely a premium to the sparkling water category which has become commoditized. And then, because we are made with real fruit, they anticipated a little bit bolder flavor and so we weren’t quite hitting the flavor mark point. So with that, we made some changes, reformulation, but we had a really hard time emulating that direct consumer feedback and Social Nature was the perfect way to kind of, in a microscope, get that feedback back based on those changes we made previously.

How did Social Nature help Sanzo achieve positive retail results?

Adam: Like I said, we did a reformulation that helped bring bolder flavor and bring down our price point. The first retailer we did so with – like a clean slate, everything was reformulation – was Walmart, where we’ve gotten the price down from like a $9.99 6-pack to $8.88. We started kind of a two-prong thing with Social Nature was first to drive product awareness and get consumers to go buy off the shelf and help us start to prove the case. But then the feedback was very clear that the flavor was much better, delivered on what the consumer expectation was.

The second thing was that $8.88 still wasn’t the right price point. And so with that data, we used that to leverage a rollback with the buyer, and we went from $8.88 to $6.98. We’ve been doing that price point for about 8 weeks now. We just went to Bentonville to meet with our buyer. Excited to share that since doing the rollback, our velocities are up 104%. We basically doubled our velocities and so use that to pitch from going to 130 stores out west to a commitment from Walmart to go to 1200 stores. Leveraging the data from the Social Nature campaign, even down to what flavors they wanted to try next, we were able to get our 5th and 6th SKUs live on Walmart 1P because of the data we’ve gotten from those surveys.

Sanzo - Calamansi

What were some of the key insights you gained from working with the Social Nature community?

Adam: For me it was the price. So like Walmart, we were talking to, I’m gonna say, pretty much new consumers. 81% of consumers had never tried our brand, so we’re new to brand. 79% repurchase intent, which is amazing. We love to hear that. And then when we drilled into the 21% that said they wouldn’t repurchase, 69% of that was based on price, thinking it wasn’t a good value or it was priced too high. And so that’s what really led us to going from $8.88 to $6.98 every day with a rollback at Walmart.

How does Social Nature stand out from other shopper marketing platforms you've used?

Adam: Head and shoulders above. I think those other platforms do a halfway decent job of driving trial and awareness, but I believe you guys do it in a more targeted way. What sets you guys apart is the trial. I think it’s the consumer base that you have, especially for a brand like us, is our pocket. Those are the kind of consumers we want to speak to and want to hear from. But then the ability to actually get that feedback in those surveys and the fact that the surveys are customizable. Working with you to customize what we wanted to get out of the campaigns and the information we wanted to hear from the consumer, that was not something that anybody else provides.

If you had to choose one thing, what would you say was the biggest impact of working with Social Nature?

Adam: I think it’s the availability. I mean, as I’ve had questions or things like that, [Gus has] been amazing to just connect very quickly, work through, troubleshoot anything. Even the issues we were kind of having at the start with Bazaarvoice. That’s another positive thing – the ability to syndicate all these reviews we’re getting over to Walmart.com was a big part of that 1P conversation. Small hiccups on the Bazaarvoice side, but you were amazing throughout it, giving me the right contacts and the right information to make sure that that eventually started to flow through.

Sanzo - Yuzu

What was your experience like working with the Social Nature team?

Adam: I mean, [Gus has] been amazing since day one. I had a little bit of experience with Social Nature but not this in depth, and so having you to help guide me has been phenomenal and making sure that even as a small brand with not the same resources as a Coke or a Pepsi, making sure that we’re taking our dollar and stretching out further and really optimizing what we’re doing. You’ve been amazing at helping us do that. And then helping me structure the questions and knowing what I wanted to get as end results, what I wanted to hear from the consumer, helping walk them through that survey – you were amazing at that, so I really appreciate that.

Would you recommend Social Nature to other brands, and if so, why?

Adam: 100%, especially if you are a smaller, scrappier brand. Once you get on the shelf at some of these new accounts, you have to start producing day one. The quickest way is to do more and drive them to the shelf. And Social Nature is an amazing tool. You can geo-target. You can get them, whether it’s free or BOGO, the ability to go to the shelf you want them to. You can really steer them to the right retailer that you’re trying to drive that activity in. And the trial and awareness is great, but the consumer feedback is invaluable. I mean, you can’t put a price on it, it’s amazing.

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