UK Case File · Teffie
My part of the assignment was a 12 month marketing communications plan for Teffie, a UK snack brand moving into national retail. Here I focus on the content, the messaging and how I planned to measure it.
The Brief
Teffie is a UK food manufacturer that bakes soft snacks from teff, an ancient grain, in its own bakery. It is now expanding beyond independent shops into national retail, where most shoppers have never heard of it.
The client wanted more awareness and sales at the new national stockists, and a position as an everyday brand with wide appeal. The brand is anti diet culture, and every health claim has to follow UK food labelling law. I worked from the client briefing, follow up correspondence and public sources.
Teffie is winning shelf space faster than
shoppers are learning who it is.
What I Found
I audited the website teffie.me and Instagram @teffie.me between 26 and 31 August 2026. Teffie posts more often than two of its four main competitors, yet nothing it says builds up, so nothing turns into recognition.
Key insight. Shoppers have stopped believing what snack brands tell them. The strongest asset going unused is a short ingredient list made up of seven things shoppers recognise: teff, dates, dark chocolate, coconut sap, chicory root, maple and flaxseed. Where claims are doubted, an ingredient list needs no claim.
Content Strategy · 1
Mainstream UK grocery shoppers aged 25 to 54 who buy snacks during a weekly shop
Choosing a snack is a fast, habitual decision made in seconds at the shelf. The existing Instagram audience is narrower than the brand's ambition. Closing that gap is part of the campaign.
Existing customers and subscribers
They bring repeat revenue and referrals. Online sales run on subscriptions, so a first order only pays if the customer stays.
The client asked what universal pain points Teffie addresses. Shoppers feel pushed into three choices, and Teffie sits on neither side of any of them.
| The choice shoppers feel forced into | How Teffie answers it | |
|---|---|---|
| Healthy | or enjoyable | Familiar flavours make it a treat |
| Convenient | or satisfying | One snack, full until the next meal |
| Trusting a label | or accepting processed food | Recognisable ingredients, shown not claimed |
Content Strategy · 2
This was my campaign idea, held for the whole year. Teffie has outgrown the specialist food shop, so the move into national retail is treated as a change in who the brand is for, not just where it is sold.
The idea is paired each time with the retailer now stocking the product, and the ingredient list sits beneath it as proof. It makes no health claim, so it needs no regulatory approval, and it answers distrust by showing instead of telling.
Key Message
A good snack belongs everywhere.
Now at [new stockist].
It runs alongside "Craving something better?", the line Teffie leads with on its deck and homepage. The other five straplines are retired.
Content Strategy · 3
I used DRIP to set what the communications have to achieve and RACE to map how someone moves from first seeing the brand to buying it, and then buying it again.
| RACE stage | DRIP purpose | Main activity |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | Differentiate | One line across pack, website, social and shelf. Ambassador content from Fran Hennessy and Dr Scott Robinson. Press through the founder's contacts. |
| Act | Inform | Shelf material carrying the line, the retailer and the ingredient list, with a QR code to a landing page. |
| Convert | Persuade | Discount codes linking a first purchase to the subscription. A rebuilt stockist page naming every retailer. Twelve sampling sessions. |
| Engage | Reinforce | #TeffieSpotted customer posts, brand reshares, a monthly box draw and subscription reminder emails. |
Customers are asked to tag #TeffieSpotted when they find Teffie in a shop. The brand reshares each post, enters it into a monthly box draw from short-dated stock, and adds the shop to the stockist page. The draw costs nothing, since the stock would otherwise expire. The shared value is that good food should be normal, not niche.
The campaign is designed to be shareable rather than viral, because the reward for posting is a reshare and a place in the monthly draw. Paid digital was rejected as the main channel, since the client's own past results showed views rarely turned into visits.
Content Strategy · 4
I designed four pieces to show how the idea would look on the shelf and on social. Each one sits at a stage of the customer journey.
Working Inside Their Brand
Every piece uses Teffie's own warm cocoa and caramel tones, so the campaign looks like the pack people pick up.
Measurement
Cookie based tracking cannot be relied on, so nothing in the plan depends on website behaviour data. Everything comes from records Teffie already holds: discount codes, Shopify, Klaviyo, retailer sales reports and short surveys.
of surveyed shoppers describe Teffie in everyday rather than specialist health terms, and every new national stockist is announced in one consistent format, by 31 December 2027.
units sold per store per week in each new national account, from its first 12 full trading weeks to the final 12 weeks of 2027.
first time buyers become subscribers, with 55% still subscribed after 90 days, by 31 December 2027.
Everyday description score
Survey at sampling sessions and by emailMessage consistency check
Quarterly review of own posts, website and shelf materialUnique monthly reach
Instagram Insights, against the starting figureStockist announcements completed
Campaign records, three of threeUnits per store per week
Retailer sales reports and distributor recordsRetailer reorder rate
Distributor order recordsSupported vs unsupported stores
The closest thing to a fair test of whether the campaign caused the increasePress coverage gained
Media monitoring and the founder's PR recordsSubscriptions from campaign codes
Shopify subscription and order records90 day retention rate
Shopify, grouped by the month people joinedCustomer acquisition cost
Finance records and ShopifyStockist page visits and customer posts
Shopify page data and social monitoring| How often | What is reviewed |
|---|---|
| Weekly | Shelf material delivery, code problems and #TeffieSpotted posts |
| Monthly | Codes used, sales per store, subscriptions and reach |
| Quarterly | Progress on all three objectives, message consistency, acquisition cost and the supported versus unsupported store difference. Contingency plans are triggered here. |
| Year end | Final results against all objectives, with recommendations for year two |
A shopper who buys in store without a code cannot be traced, so the results are a low estimate, not the full picture. This is a measurement plan. I did not run live analytics or report on real campaign results for this project.
Making It Happen
Preparation finishes before launch, so the line, the claims and the codes are ready before activity starts.
| Period | Milestones |
|---|---|
| Oct to Dec 2026Preparation | Adopt the campaign line, retire the other straplines, check claims against UK law, make the subscription sign up DMCC compliant, rebuild the stockist page, build the landing page and codes, agree baselines, run the first survey. |
| Jan to Mar 2027Launch | Shelf material into stores. Ambassador filming day. First stockist announcement. |
| Apr to Jun 2027Build | Second announcement. Customer posts begin. First review. |
| Jul to Sep 2027Improve | Third announcement. Second review. |
| Oct to Dec 2027Evaluate | Subscription reminder campaign. Full evaluation. |
What I Took From It · Use what is already there
Brands often own better assets than they use. Teffie had a contracted ambassador it stopped using and a stockist page nobody could find. The better move is often to use what is already there, not add new activity.
What you can measure limits what you can promise. Finding that the website showed no cookie consent banner changed the whole evaluation design. I would check what can lawfully be measured before writing a single objective.
Repetition is worth more than variety. Effort was never the problem. Agreeing a fixed set of words at the start of a campaign lets impressions build up instead of replacing each other.
Notes
The mock-ups were created with help from AI image tools. They are concept designs made for a university report and were never used in a live campaign. The research behind the plan comes from public sources and a briefing with the client. Brand names and logos belong to their owners. This page is not affiliated with or endorsed by Teffie.
Marketing in Practice (BEMM215), MSc Digital Marketing, University of Exeter. 2026. Student assignment.