Myprotein: Proving the Commercial Value of Brand-First Acquisition on Meta.

The Brief

In the highly commoditised sports nutrition sector, conventional e-commerce wisdom dictates that deep discounts are the primary driver of scale. Working alongside the leadership team at Myprotein (THG), a critical strategic challenge was identified: Could we decouple new customer acquisition from discount-led messaging to protect margins and long-term brand equity? The objective was to engineer a framework that tested a "brand-first" communication strategy against the business's heavily reliant "price-first" strategy.

The Implementation

1. The Isolated Testing Architecture
To navigate internal reliance on promotions, the test required absolute scientific rigor. Relying on platform insights that 60-70% of campaign performance is dictated by creative , I developed a strict testing architecture to isolate the messaging variable.

• The Control (Discount): Highlighted aggressive pricing, promotional codes (e.g., 40% Off), and immediate cost savings.

• The Variable (Brand): Led strictly with brand USPs, emotional storytelling, value framing ("£1.20 per scoop"), and product quality.

• Both cells maintained identical SKUs, matched budgets, mirroring audience targeting, and consistent media objectives.

2. The Phased Value Pivot
The experiment was deployed in two distinct phases to gather actionable commercial intelligence:

• Phase 01: Tested a pure Brand message against a heavy 40% Discount. While the heavy discount unsurprisingly drove raw volume, the Brand assets showed massive leading indicators for engagement and higher order values.

• Phase 02: Utilising the phase one data, we evolved the strategy. We reduced the promotional intensity to 30% and introduced a hybrid "Brand + Value" proposition to the creative.

The Commercial Impact (The Results):

Phase 02 proved conclusively that reducing reliance on heavy discounts does not throttle performance when the creative architecture is engineered correctly. By leading with brand value rather than a race to the bottom, the unit economics shifted favourably:

• Winning the Top of Funnel (Prospecting): In pure prospecting campaigns designed to acquire net-new customers, the Brand messaging successfully overtook the discount control, capturing 51% of the new customer cohort (compared to 49% for discount).

• Margin Protection (AOV): Customers exposed to the brand-centric creative demonstrated higher commercial value, yielding an AOV nearly 5% higher than the discount cohort.

• Closing the Volume Gap: Despite a weaker promotional offer, the Brand approach held its ground commercially, with the heavy discount control only managing a marginal 2.42% edge in total revenue.

• Engagement as a Leading Indicator: Brand video formats completely eclipsed discount videos in holding audience attention, driving 91.5% more 3-second video plays and 33% more video completions (95% watch time).

Strategic Implications

This framework challenged the fundamental assumption of Myprotein's acquisition strategy. It proved to the leadership team that moving away from aggressive price-slashing as the default communication strategy does not result in a loss of market share. Instead, leading with a strong brand and value proposition protects unit economics, attracts higher-value customers, and scales long-term brand equity.