How to Build a Billion-Dollar Business

CHAPTER 13GET SONIA

We now had the formula for marketing success, but we didn't quite yet know how to sustain it. We didn't need to reinvent what we'd done, we just needed to get better at what we were already doing, refine the process, keep all the elements relevant to our audience and maintain the momentum.

To become Australia's number one natural health brand, we needed to achieve these three goals:

1. consolidate our core customer base in pharmacy
2. bring new customers into grocery
3. bring in customers who had never previously bought a natural health product.

To achieve this, we needed a similar but different version of the Ponting campaign that had been so successful: a campaign that would leverage the learnings we had made but attract a new audience. In short, we needed a ‘female Ricky’: a personality who was fit, fun and fabulous, a woman at the top of her game and an aspirational role model. I conducted a poll of one and asked my mother what her favourite TV show was. ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ she said.

I watched the show and it was clear that Sonia was the star and was the key to its success. She was beautiful, healthy, had an awesome sense of humour and, to cap it off, was a superstar ballroom dancer. I checked in with Dimi, our Priceline buyer, about having Sonia as an ambassador and she was more excited than I was. That was a great sign. I rang Sonia's manager, eager to discover if this deal would be of interest. It was, and, even better, she was already an avid user ...