St Luke’s wins £4m smoothie brief

PJ Smoothies has handed its £4m advertising account to St Luke’s following a competitive pitch against undisclosed agencies.

PJ Smoothies has handed its &£4m advertising account to St Luke’s following a competitive pitch against undisclosed agencies.

The protracted search for an agency has been overseen by marketing manager Kathryn McKenzie and began last October (MW October 9, 2003). St Luke’s will be the first agency to work for PJ Smoothies – previous advertising has been devised in house.

The smoothie market was valued at &£69m last month, with the potential to grow to &£150m by 2008 (Zenith International). PJ Smoothies lost its position as brand leader by turnover to rival Innocent last year (AC Nielsen). Innocent recently launched an outdoor campaign using a “made by nature” theme and is considering a national television campaign. It will also repeat its free Fruitstock music event in London’s Regent Park.

PJ Smoothies launched a &£2m marketing campaign last September using TV advertising with the strapline “Done being bad”. Its first media exposure was as sponsor of ITV1 reality TV series Survivor and ITV2 Survivor Raw in April 2002.

The company, originally called Pete & Johnny Smoothies, was launched in 1994 and recorded a turnover of &£9.45m last year. The product is listed in major supermarkets such as Asda, Sainsbury’s, Safeway and Tesco.