Moon Juice & CPC Strategy Partner to Reach New Audiences via Paid Social
The first Moon Juice shop opened on Rose Avenue in Venice, California in 2011.
But long before the brand won over the hearts of A-listers like Gwyneth Paltrow and Zoë Kravitz, the concept of “cosmic powders” to enhance your beauty, health, and even sex life seemed like a far-fetched idea for mainstream consumers.
Today, Moon Juice is well on their way to establishing deep roots in the health and wellness community and their reputation for quality products and new age branding is flourishing among health-focused millennials.
While they continue to serve up innovative cold press juices and snacks in their brick and mortar locations in LA, they’ve also expanded their online presence to include adaptogenic superherb dusts and capsules.
But if you haven’t heard of “Beauty Dust” or “Sex Dust” and you’re suddenly curious – you are not alone. Maybe it’s the mystique of the brand, or dare I say – the cosmic energy attracting thousands of new shoppers.
Whatever the reason for their recent success, the heart and soul of Moon Juice stems from Founder, Amanda Chantal Bacon and her unique story.
A Cosmic Calling: The Launch of Moon Juice
Bacon grew up in New York City surrounded by creative energy. Her mother was the CEO of Betsey Johnson, an established fashion brand and her father was a musician.
Unfortunately, from a young age, Bacon struggled with her health. She was described as a “sickly child” who constantly visited the doctor. Nothing seemed to help until she ran into an Ayurvedic doctor visiting from India at a health-food store.
After a brief examination, the doctor gave Bacon’s mother a list of food items to avoid including white sugar, wheat, and milk. This was a major turning point for Bacon and would later spark her interest in the health and wellness industry.
When she turned 18, Bacon set out on her very own “Eat, Pray, Love” pilgrimage across the world to study different plants, foods and cultures.
In contrast to the fast pace of her childhood life in New York City, for the first time Bacon was introduced to slow food, made with quality products in a community-focused environment.
This is when Bacon discovered the power of plants and that wellness could not only be “ingested” but could also impact an entire community.
Not long after her graduation, Bacon was hired by Los Angeles-based chef Suzanne Goin. She studied and worked as a chef under Goin until 2011, when she decided to open her first Moon Juice store in Venice, California.
Moon Juice’s first brick and mortar (or “juice bar”) sold a variety of cold press juices, cosmic snacks and modern pantry items like chaga, pearl, bee pollen and reishi.
Moon Juice Goes Digital
By 2014, Moon Juice was ready to launch their ecommerce store including a line of adaptogenic herb blends (aka the Moon Dusts) all engineered to deliver targeted benefits to beauty, brain, sex, power, spirit and dream.
Each Moon Dust can be mixed into hot or cold liquids like juices, smoothies, teas or coffee or incorporated into recipes like “Moon Dusted Maple Pancakes” and “Sex Dust Cookies”.
The shift from juice to powder-based products was genius. Not only could Moon Juice now store and ship their products, but they could market to new audiences all over the world (not just shoppers in walking distance to their juice shop).
Suddenly, Moon Juice was attracting big name celebrity buzz. In 2015, Moon Juice was featured on Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle blog “Goop”, a booming platform for health-conscious females.
Later, Zoë Kravitz publicly pronounced Moon Juice was her “favorite juice bar”. And even though Bacon wasn’t necessarily considered a famous person, she was well on her way to becoming an influencer in the A-list health and wellness community.
Moon Juice Ramps Up Digital Marketing Strategy
In December 2017, Mila Aldrin, joined Moon Juice as their Director of E-Commerce.
“I was working at a luxury cosmetics brand that partnered closely with beauty retailers Sephora, BlueMercury and SpaceNK. Being in that space over the past few years, I saw first-hand the rise in interest for ingestible beauty and nutricosmetics so when Moon Juice approached me, it was an opportunity I had to take!”
Q. In your opinion, what makes the Moon Juice brand unique?
There’s a growing understanding that beauty comes from the inside out and Moon Juice sits at the perfect intersection of functional food, beauty and wellness.
You may come into our shops looking for simple nourishment in the form of a protein smoothie but add a dash of Pearl and Schisandra Berry, throw in some Ashwagandha for your daily dose of adaptogens, and you’ve just alchemized a cosmic potion to elevate body, beauty and consciousness.
“Given Amanda’s culinary background, quality is key, so we source the most potent plants in the world and we bring in the science to back our products up.”
Having all of that in one place is what sets us apart and how Moon Juice naturally became a mecca for plant-sourced beauty and wellbeing.
Q. Why did you decide to expand your product line?
Our innovation pipeline revolves around the idea of making adaptogens accessible and easy to incorporate into daily routines. In response to feedback that some customers were confused about how to use our Moon Dusts, we created SuperYou, our first capsule, which launched last month.
SuperYou is a clinical strength blend of four potent adaptogenic superherbs [Ashwagandha, Rhodiola, Amla Berry, and Shatavari] that work together to address the effects of stress on the mind and body.
By helping to normalize cortisol levels, SuperYou helps reduce stress, while enhancing energy, mood, focus & beauty. Putting these superherbs together into one capsule simplifies the process of taking adaptogens daily and we want to continue creating products that people across the world can easily use and benefit from.
Q. Why was it important to partner with an agency like CPC Strategy?
It’s important to us to expand our reach outside of the LA community. We feel really strongly about our message of plant-based wellbeing and want to spread that message as far and wide as possible.
“We’ve been lucky to have a supportive organic following and great press, but to become a leader in this particular space we wanted to work with an agency who could seriously focus on expanding our audience reach – that is why we decided to partner with CPC Strategy.”
The Results:
“Moon Juice has always had amazing results on Facebook, which shows that their audience has been waiting for a brand – and product – like this for a long time. But what’s truly special is the overall growth we’ve seen on the .com due to the awareness we’ve created around the brand on paid social,” Casey Edwards, Senior Social Marketing Strategist at CPC Strategy said.
“In Q1 (2018) we saw a +27% increase from Organic + Direct in both sessions and revenue compared to Q4 (2017) despite November being the strongest revenue driving month to date.”
“This is attributed to the brand awareness created by our paid efforts on Facebook and Instagram. In addition to those channels, we’ve seen strong growth metrics across the site.”
Conversion rate has increased +1.78% – which is really strong considering 89% of our total budget has been allocated to completely new audiences. In combination with efforts on paid search, we were also able to increase revenue 21.72% YoY in Q1.
“When creating a paid social strategy for an up and coming brand like Moon Juice, we’re always optimizing what we’re doing on Facebook, but we’re also tracking how the site is doing as a whole. Are we driving sufficient traffic to the site, contributing to assisted conversions and seeing growth in other channels? If so, then we know we’re on to something,” Edwards said.
Q. What’s a marketing challenge for Moon Juice today?
One of our biggest challenges is keeping up with the increasing content needs of a fast growing brand. If you look at our Instagram, you’ll see that the type of content that resonates with our followers is cosmic, colorful, and almost otherworldly.
Instagram has always been the heart of our social growth, but the kind of content that works on Instagram doesn’t necessarily work for Facebook/Twitter, or resonate in digital ads.
Since we have a small in-house creative team, we don’t always have the bandwidth necessary to create differentiated content for each platform.
“Casey has been instrumental in helping us overcome this challenge by connecting us with creative resources at CPC Strategy and we’re currently working with their team to create video ads for Facebook.”
Q. How are you managing your retail partner relationships?
Moon Juice products are currently available at Sephora, Nordstrom, and Barneys NY and we’re focusing on growing those relationships as we shift from a cold press juice & supplement company into a beauty and wellness brand.
You can also find Moon Juice products at retailers like Detox Market, Cap Beauty, Goop and ABC Home, which tailor to a more niche audience.
While there’s interest in eventually opening up more shops, our lean team is focused on developing new products and supporting growth at our current locations and retailers.
Q. Are you currently planning for Q4?
Absolutely! November is our biggest sales month so like most retailers, we’re already planning our holiday creative and assortment. We know that in Q4 consumers expect exclusives and we want to give them something to be excited about.
“We’re also working through our omni-channel holiday strategy as we want to drive a singular message across our shops and online channels.”
This is challenging for us because in shops, our cold press juices are the store’s bread and butter, but online we don’t sell any juices at all. We’re currently exploring what messaging works best online versus in stores so that we can deliver the best shopping experience to all Moon Juice customers.
Q. What can we expect from Moon Juice in the near future?
We’re launching adaptogenic skincare! “Beauty Shroom” is our first foray into topicals and features clean, non-toxic, and naturally-derived ingredients.
No parabens, phthalates, sulfates, or gluten – it’s a line of clean, potent and active skincare products featuring adaptogenic Silver Ear Mushroom, Reishi, Tocotrienols, and Hyaluronic Acid.
According to reports, “Beauty Shroom” features 3 new skin care products including Exfoliating Acid Potion ($39), Plumping Jelly Serum ($58),and Vegan Collagen Protection ($58). (a cream-colored powder, meant to be tossed into coffee, matcha, or smoothies).
The Beauty Shroom skincare collection rolled out to U.S. Sephora locations (including their .com) and moonjuice.com on July 19.
“This brand is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before! It’s so great to be a part of something that’s so on fire right now and means so much to people across the world. I’m very excited to be involved as we cross over into this new line of products.”
For more information on how to grow your brand awareness via Paid Social, email tara@cpcstrategy.
You Might Be Interested In
