The Big Interview – Maxinutrition

Craig Read, commercial director at Maxinutrition UK, speaks to sportindustry.biz about the reasons behind the rebrand of an established, 20 year-old company and reflecting a changing consumer base.

Maximuscle took the decision recently to make the change to Maxinutrition, what was the reasoning behind the move?

When we started with the rebrand one of the main movements was from Maximuscle to Maxinutrition, I guess what we saw here is, if you look at the market right now, the penetration remains quite small. The perception from the majority of people playing sport or doing exercise is that sport nutrition is not relevant for them. And I think’s it’s because there is a heritage of it being a bit scary, they don’t understand it well enough, it’s not widely distributed and so what we have done is a lot of research with our consumers. 

What we got from that process is that the terminology of Maximuscle itself is quite off-putting for a vast number of people who don’t necessarily do exercise or consume products just to gain muscle. By changing the name of our core product to Maxinutrition, it allows us to broaden the appeal of the brand and also the category which was the overall objective. 

The brand has been Maximuscle for 20 years so it’s quite a radical change, the culture and perception of nutrition products has obviously changed over that time, and has had a big influence in your decision I suppose?

Yes absolutely. If you just look at the huge number of manufacturers, products, innovation, retailers and you look at what the grocery retailers are now doing with sports nutrition – five years ago it wasn’t in store, now it’s a multi-million pound category – it’s really an exciting time. In the last 20 years it’s become far more accessible to the everyday person, products are far safer and easy to use and I think also people are more health conscience. 

These products fit into current demand in the UK. That’s been the growth engine of the entire category and it has changed massively. I still think we have a huge job to do around education of these products and we know from our research that consumers just don’t understand what all our products do and so we still have to fill that void. 

You refer to the education and understanding of the consumer, is the rebrand a reflection of that consumer base?

Yes, we conducted a lot of research with consumers from Holland and Barrett and Tesco and we founded a significant drop off in the people that actually visited the fixture to actually making the purchase. When we looked at the reasons for failed purchase we realised quite quickly it was just a lack of education of what these different products do. 

You had consumers picking up products that were not necessarily right for their goal, they went straight for price or they picked up a product but were too embarrassed to ask for more information. People were looking at a five metre fixture but weren’t sure which of the many products were right for them. So part of the rebrand is to make it as easy as possible for consumers to pick up the right products. 

Going back a few years, in 2011 the company was acquired by GSK, a very science led and technology-based brand, what did the move enable you to do differently?

If I relay the GSK mission to you, it is do more, feel better and live longer. So that’s our over-arching mission. Everything we do as Maxi is in line with those principles and our campaign is “you, stronger”. The sentiment of the two brands and the connection is brilliant and I guess what GSK brings to a brand like Maxi is a huge infrastructure and knowledge in terms of RND resource. 

We can make sure we have innovation and formulation, and make sure we are leading the market. Being part of consumer healthcare business means that Maxi now has access to the marketing capability of a large blue-chip company and that is a significant benefit. 

Looking ahead, is there a specific target in terms of audience understanding or product sales in five years’ time?

In terms of the target we have got for Maxi, we have to continue to grow the brand and the category, double digit, for the next five years. That is almost an absolute minimum for me. If we don’t continue to grow double digits I don’t think we have done the right thing for the category. So for me I would love to see this brand twice as big as what it is now in five years and that will come through innovation, expansion and distribution and a broader appeal of the different types of format. Our overall objective is to make Maxi and sports nutrition more accessible to the masses. 

Your sponsorship portfolio is gradually growing in sport, with WRU, ECB, RFU, along with a number of individual athletes on board, is this something you are keen to expand on the business side?

I think sponsorship plays a really key role for us in terms of brand strategy. It drives credibility and adds relevance to our core target audience and enhances our brand appeal and awareness. We will continue to work with the best athletes in the UK and Ireland. We have just signed two new ambassadors in Ireland, including Connor Murray, for the launch of Maxi in the Irish market. It’s vitally critical that we have that top-end credibility with the elite sports.