Case Study
Arla Foods
Client: Arla Foods US
Industry: Specialty Dairy, Consumer Packaged Goods
Company Size: US division of a large European dairy cooperative, multi-brand portfolio
Services: Content Strategy & Production, Social Media, Email Marketing, Paid Media, Digital Promotions, Website Consolidation
Engagement Type: Integrated multi-brand digital marketing
Arla Foods is a major European dairy cooperative with established US market presence and aggressive growth goals. The US grocery market is fundamentally different from European markets — more fragmented, more geographically diverse, and requiring a brand-building approach that could work across multiple product lines simultaneously. Arla’s US portfolio included several brands, each operating with inconsistent digital infrastructure and no unified strategy.
The US Grocery Market Doesn’t Reward a European Playbook.
What the Client Came In With
The engagement began as a smaller project. It quickly became clear that the issues extended beyond the original scope. Each brand in the portfolio was managing its own digital presence independently, often on different technology platforms, making coordinated management and consistent brand execution across the US market difficult to sustain. Social media was minimal, email marketing was underdeveloped, and there was no content strategy connecting the brands to the audiences they needed to reach in the US consumer market.
What the Assessment Revealed
The core problem was structural. Fragmented platforms and disconnected brand strategies meant every initiative required more effort to execute and produced less return than a unified approach would. The US market’s geographic scale and audience diversity demanded a strategy that could be tested regionally with limited budget, proven with data, and scaled nationally once the proof of concept was established. That sequencing became the strategic foundation for everything that followed.
Test It Regionally.
Prove It Works.
Then Expand into the next Market.
What We Built
A unified website infrastructure consolidated the multi-brand portfolio onto a single content management system, making coordinated execution across brands operationally viable. A dedicated recipe development team created custom content for each product, driving brand awareness through search and social by connecting each product to the specific culinary context where it belonged. Social media management, email marketing, digital promotions including contests and sweepstakes, and regional and national paid campaigns operated as a connected system rather than isolated brand activities.
The regional rollout was deliberate. Targeted campaigns in specific markets generated the proof-of-concept data needed to justify expanded national budget. Once regional performance demonstrated the approach worked, investment scaled accordingly.
The Outcomes
Regional sales increased 53.7% year-over-year in the target markets. National sales increased 10.6% year-over-year. Branded online searches grew 247%, reflecting meaningful consumer awareness gains across the portfolio. The campaign generated 9 million display impressions and 1.5 million digital radio impressions across the engagement.
The regional strategy did exactly what it was designed to do. It produced evidence strong enough to make the case for national expansion.
53.7% Regional Sales Growth. 247% Increase in Branded Searches. The Regional Test Paid for the National Rollout.
The Strategy
Test It Regionally. Prove It Works. Then Expand into the next Market.