When premium snack brand Forest Feast decided to make its first serious above-the-line investment in the UK market, the stakes were high, with expectations for brand-building and retail sales during the most competitive period of the year. Working with Mostly Media, Forest Feast set out to prove that a focused, data-led £200,000 budget could deliver results across brand awareness, retail footfall and online sales during the six-week Christmas 2025 window.

The Challenge

Forest Feast needed the campaign to work hard on every front. The objectives were ambitious for the budget: build brand awareness and reinforce the brand’s position as category leader in Chocolate Dipped Fruits and Nuts across five distinct regions – London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland – while simultaneously driving footfall to key retail partners including Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Tesco and Dunnes. On top of that, there was a secondary objective to drive traffic and sales through the Forest Feast website, and to do all of this within strict HFSS advertising compliance. With no prior above-the-line activity to build on, there was no room for wasted spend.

Mostly Media’s Approach

The strategy rested on three pillars: reach the right audience, extract maximum value from every pound spent, and build frequency through a coherent multi-channel mix. TGI data showed the target audience – ABC1 adults aged 25–54 –over-indexed heavily on BVoD, streaming an average of 27 hours a week, which shaped a channel architecture anchored by Channel 4 Streaming and Amazon Prime CTV, supported by YouTube, Meta, out-of-home and programmatic display.

A defining move was securing a 100% matched value deal with Channel 4, doubling the effective media weight of every pound spent on the platform. Mid-campaign, budget was reallocated toward lower-cost, non-skippable YouTube formats after they proved far more cost-efficient — delivering a CPV of just £0.008, well below the £0.02–0.03 benchmark. Out-of-home activity was concentrated in two-week bursts around key stores, while programmatic and Meta campaigns used store-proximity targeting to convert awareness into footfall. Every placement was planned around HFSS restrictions, including post-21:00 delivery for BVoD.

The Results

The campaign delivered 23.7 million total impressions and reached an estimated 60.98% of the target audience, against a total investment of £200,758.

• Brand awareness rose 8.3% during the campaign period.

• Commercially, December sales grew 31% year-on-year, comfortably outpacing the brand’s overall business trend, while full-year sales were up 24%.

• Online performance was even stronger: website sales grew 35% in December year-on-year, outpacing overall sales growth by four percentage points.

Why The Campaign Worked

Every channel decision can be traced back to hard audience data rather than assumption. The Channel 4 value deal maximised reach without inflating cost, and the willingness to shift budget mid-flight toward better-performing formats meant the plan kept improving in real time rather than running on autopilot. Layering awareness-building formats like BVoD and YouTube with engagement-focused paid social media and store-proximity targeting meant the campaign worked the full funnel, not just the top of it.

Summing It Up

Forest Feast’s first major above-the-line campaign didn’t just meet its objectives, it exceeded every one of them, from brand awareness through to hard sales growth. It’s a clear demonstration that with sharp audience targeting, strong media partnerships and a willingness to optimise as data comes in, even a modest budget can deliver category-leading results.