Case Study
Dole and Flywheel Digital connect with new customers and increase sales in Japan with sponsored ads
Dole believes nourishing, healthy food should be available to everyone. The company’s tagline, “Sunshine for All,” reflects their commitment to providing equitable access to produce including fresh, packaged, and frozen fruits.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dole recognized a shift toward healthier diets and the rapid increase of online food shopping for Japanese consumers. The company saw an opportunity to drive digital sales of their health-conscious packaged products, including their sugar-free fruit cups and canned fruit . Dole teamed up with Flywheel Digital, a managed service provider of industry-leading technology and proprietary methodologies, to help clients scale digital commerce growth and help achieve their business goals.
Dole featured in the best-seller ranking in Japan
Prioritizing product detail pages
In September 2021, Flywheel began refining Dole’s Amazon presence to help the produce giant reach their main goal: increase sales through new customer acquisition. Together, they set key performance indicators to define success such as rising incremental sales, market share growth, and higher organic sales ranks.
The first step was ensuring Dole’s Store and product detail pages were retail-ready. The Flywheel team incorporated strong images, compelling product titles, and engaging A+ content, all of which was optimized for mobile. These steps were important for Flywheel since they believe that product pages are an extension of a brand’s official website. Therefore, Flywheel prioritized designing these pages with eye-catching imagery and informative content.
To accomplish this, Flywheel worked with photographers and copywriters to create Japan-focused lifestyle images that highlight packaged fruit as part of local food culture. Relatable scenes such as families having breakfast and imagery of shoppers stocking their pantries are now featured on Dole’s pages.
Flywheel also invested in Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Brands video to help capture the attention of new search customers. By optimizing strategic non-branded keywords such as “yogurt” and “granola,” they helped Dole stand out in related product searches.
— Tomoyuki Maeda, representative, Flywheel Digital in JapanSince most shoppers are typically attracted to products with higher search rank, investing in Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products to gain a share of above the fold results is a step toward success.
In the lead-up to and aftermath of big events such as Black Friday, Flywheel implemented Sponsored Display ads to expand Dole’s reach to customers. They used Amazon Marketing Stream to manage intraday campaigns during key sales events and leveraged custom analytics reporting through Amazon Marketing Cloud to generate insights on which media strategies were working best.
Becoming a Black Friday best seller
From 2020 to 2021, Dole’s overall sales increased by 176%, contributing to an incremental growth in sales of 54% from 2021 to 2022.1 The combination of using data through Amazon Marketing Stream to track campaign bids and Flywheel’s solutions for hourly optimizations led to Dole reaching the best-seller ranks in the Food and Canned Foods category during the Black Friday sale in 2022.2
Prior to partnering with Flywheel, Dole primarily invested in tactics with a high return on ad spend. The company has now uncovered new and improved methods for acquiring new customers and increasing sales through its partnership.
“With Amazon Ads, we’ve found that investment in organic search results for strategic keywords helped to increase top-line revenue and search rank,” said Masahi Nogo, general manager of the processed-foods division at Dole. “Partnering with Flywheel has helped lead to strong sales growth using Amazon Ads, even with our limited budget.”
The partnership between Dole and Flywheel Digital has proven to be a catalyst for Dole’s success on Amazon. With a strategic approach and continuous optimization, Dole is spreading their brand of healthy sunshine to expanded audiences in Japan.
1-2 Source: Flywheel, Japan, 2023.