Introduction

Gousto is a UK meal kit service company that was founded in 2012 and is currently all across the UK as one of the best meal kit service companies. The company was initially recognized as one of the best start-up companies in the UK in 2015. Currently, the company provides an endless number of recipes for its customers with an average of 60 recipes every week (Gousto, 2022).  The company has been hugely focusing on variety, quality, and simplicity to attract more customers across the UK. The company runs a subscription-based model which provides meals to its customers on weekly basis and the customers have the freedom to cancel the subscription, whenever they want. The main competitor of Gousto is HelloFresh which holds the maximum market share in the meal kit service industry across Europe (Vardi et al. 2020). This report aims to apply, assess and recommend the marketing communication strategy that Gousto needs to implement to increase its brand awareness and market share, also obtaining competitive advantage.

Discussion

Gousto has started operating in the UK market in 2012 with a promise to deliver beast meal kits made from fresh ingredients to its target customers (Gousto Blog, 2022). Its main competitor HelloFresh was already present in the market before Gousto and has been serving its customers all across the UK and has the highest market share. Therefore, Gousto started promoting itself on different media like TV and OOH platforms to increase its brand awareness (Sutton 2017). The campaign name was Unbox Possibility and it showcased various types of recipes that were available for the customers. The brand-building promotional strategy did not work as expected because of its poor strategies which mainly focused on providing limited offers and offer codes to the customers. In, 2018, the company implemented direct marketing strategies but the results were not satisfactory and compared to its competitors, the campaigns were outdated. It questioned their brand loyalty and people continued to switch brands. Gousto was sitting at only 17 percent of market awareness compared to HelloFresh which was having 32% brand awareness in the market. The growth rate was slow and HelloFresh was still the market leader. The market share of Gousto was 22 percent compared to HelloFresh which was 28 percent. Thus, Gousto needs to plan a proper communication strategy that would help its market growth and brand awareness along with increasing its market share.