HungryHouse closing the performance and brand marketing gap to boost sales

Online takeaway service HungryHouse is reinventing the way it targets consumers through a tighter mix of search, content and ecommerce in an attempt to balance its performance-driven advertising with more brand building-led principles.

HungryHouse is turning to online merchandising to drive sales conversions.
HungryHouse is turning to online merchandising to drive sales conversions.

The shift accelerates HungryHouse’s adoption of online merchandising techniques, whereby content such as video, reviews and search results are packaged in such a way that convinces consumers to make a purchase. Manifestations of the process are “very close” to rolling out, according to the business, beginning with search.

Search results will be adjusted to show users the most popular, local takeaway restaurants, while it is already pushing localised content through an email newsletter.

Native video ads are also being integrated into HungryHouse’s communications for the first time through its sponsorship of a series on Vice’s food channel. The “Munchies Guide to the North of England” four-part series is “much more of a brand play” compared to HungryHouse’s performance-driven efforts. The hope is that the localised films will help build the brand beyond London.

Alice Mrongovious, marketing director at HungryHouse, says the upcoming marketing initiatives set the tone for a more data-driven and customer-focused approach. The technology to understand customer behaviours already exists internally and it is now just a case of ensuring its systems are able to harness and use the data to its full extent.

“For us, the priority is building that understanding of customers in a hyper local context and at the same time serving a national platform.

“Our marketing remains hugely performance driven but we’re trying to take a more holistic view rather than just seeing it as the dichotomous part to brand,” she says.

“In my experience from talking to other brands, performance marketing is still something traditional marketers aren’t comfortable with. Instead, they outsource it to somebody else who can sit in front of [Google] Ad Words and do it.”

The burst of marketing follows an injection of £50m from HungryHouse’s shareholders earlier this year as it looks to defend its market share against recently floated rival Just-Eat. The online takeaway portal launched a £5m push last month that included significant media exposure outdoors on the underground and on taxis.

Despite trailing Just-Eat in terms of size, HungryHouse believes its recruitment charge for more users in the North of England, particularly among students, can grow its share of the online delivery market.

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