The Agency

An independent creative and strategy agency working with emerging food, drink, and hospitality brands. They build campaigns that go beyond the feed — into real habits and real loyalty.

The Brief

An independent wellness drink brand was launching a limited seasonal line targeting health-conscious 25–40 year olds. The challenge: drive trial, build community, and create enough content to carry them through the season — all on a tight budget.

"They had a great product and a passionate audience. They just needed a reason for that audience to show up — and a way to capture it when they did." — Strategy Lead

The Problem

Before BOLD, the agency faced a familiar set of problems:

• Loyalty without proof - the brand had engaged followers but no mechanism to convert that into measurable participation or repeat behaviour

• Seasonal pressure - the launch window was 6 weeks, leaving no room to experiment and iterate manually

• Content volume - sustaining daily channel activity across the campaign alongside client deliverables was stretching the team thin

The Challenge

A 4-week challenge on Instagram asking the brand's audience to share how they incorporate the product into their winter wellness routine, using a branded hashtag. Weekly winners received a full product bundle. The grand prize was a year's supply and a feature in the brand's content series.

How They Used BOLD

Week 0 - Simulation The agency ran two challenge formats through BOLD's AI Virality Predictor. The lifestyle routine format scored 78/100, with the AI flagging that personal storytelling formats drive 3x more saves and shares than product-only content in the wellness category. The brief was updated before a single post went live.

Week 1–4 - Launch & Automate BOLD tracked every tagged submission in real time, automatically surfacing the highest-engagement entries in the dashboard each day. The agency used this to reshare top content to the brand's stories daily — turning the challenge into a self-fuelling content engine.

BOLD's AI Content Assistant generated all weekly challenge prompts, reminder captions, and winner announcements — adapted each week based on which content angles were performing best.

End of Campaign Reporting - The automated BOLD report broke down participation by week, showing the client exactly which product variant generated the most organic content — giving their retail buyer meaningful data for the next range planning cycle.

Results

Total challenge submissions - 2,800+
Total organic reach- 480K+
New followers gained - +6,200
Engagement rate - 9.4% vs. 2.8% industry average
User-generated content produced - 2,800+
Top performing product identified - +340% engagement vs. other variants
Weekly content production time saved - 6 hours per week

The Outcome

The client used the UGC generated during the challenge as the primary creative asset for their next campaign — eliminating the need for a full production shoot. The agency presented the BOLD report to the brand's investors as proof of community traction, directly supporting their next funding round conversation.

"We didn't just run a campaign. We handed our client a community, a content library, and a business case — all from one challenge." — Strategy Lead‍