Inspirational Owners: November 2005

Emma and Tom's Life Juice

Emma and Tom’s Life Juice is one of Australia’s most successful juice producers. The company’s place on our Top 200 List is testament to their strong following. Emma Welsh and Tom Griffith first put their names on a selection of fruit juices in 2004, and since then, Emma & Tom’s Life Juice has reaped the benefits of Australia’s multi-million dollar juice market. Tom Griffith shares his thoughts.

Lovemarks: Lovemarks is premised on the Love/Respect Axis. Lovemarks attain both High Love and High Respect. How do you relate this to the way your business works from day to day?

Tom Griffith: We believe that people love a product because it delivers what the consumer wants; in fact, Emma & Tom’s most probably over delivers. We always place the quality of our raw materials as our top priority. We are very lucky, in that we have a lot of customer interaction. We are a very relationship driven business. We visit over 100 retailers every day and speak with consumers daily. Our retail customers enjoy that we are relatively small entrepreneurs, like they are.

LMKS: In thinking about your business, how, in broad terms, do you define Loyalty?

TG: First and foremost, we define loyalty by repeat purchases from our customers. Our customers sit in two tiers, retailers and consumers. The relationship the retailer has with our company, primarily via our sales representative is critically important.Consumers will become loyal if we constantly deliver a product that amazes them. A friend of ours met an English couple at Machu Picchu, who kept one of our bottle labels in their wallet. That’s loyalty!

LMKS: Lovemarks recognizes that the senses are portals to our emotions. Can you describe how the five senses connect most strongly with your product in design and service?

TG: Our design was intended to be very transparent, we did not wish to hide anything, or be thought to be hiding anything, from out customer. Our view, it’s all about the juice. We wanted to talk to our customers, so we wrote on the front of the bottle. Our bottle is square, which we thought would make it distinctive in the Australian market. Once we had attracted our potential consumer with a square design and had spoken to them from the front of the bottle, the contents had to be absolutely premium. It’s the quality of our fruit and the taste of the blends that continually reassures our consumers that they are buying a super premium fruit juice.

LMKS: Shared experiences show us where we belong and who cares about us. How does Emma & Tom’s relate to this?

TG: We wanted to create a range of juices that helped people live their lives, which is why we called it Life Juice and why our strap line is Look After Yourself. We have been approached by a number of Australian sportspeople who wanted to work with us and speak on our behalf, due to their experience with our juice, which was very encouraging. Additionally, we launched our juices via sponsorship of a number of amateur sporting events. We have been so well received, and appreciated at all these events, which are truly shared experience where every participant had the opportunity to sample our juice and gave us the opportunity to speak to them.

LMKS: What are your top 5 Lovemarks?

TG: In no particular order...
* Space NK
* Nokia
* Italy
* San Pellegrino
* Where the Wild Things Are