The Return of the Original Endurance Sports Nutrition Brand

The Challenge

Restore PowerBar to relevance after years of changing ownership, varying product lines, and straying from the company’s original purpose.

Looking back on the brand’s history, Zaltas realized that PowerBar’s early success created incredible popularity, which ultimately led to mission drift. “PowerBar started with endurance athletes, expanded like crazy, and became a household name. That growth created an unexpected situation where the brand wound up serving two audiences: endurance athletes who need to fuel their bodies and general consumers who simply loved the brand and used the products.”

As the sports nutrition industry exploded over the next few decades, the company that started by fueling champions saw its lead in the industry slip away. When Zaltas and Federico gained US distribution rights, they saw an opportunity for their company, Pivot Nutrition, to revive the PowerBar Brand by getting back to its original purpose.

“We are taking a page from PowerBar’s original playbook, and we’re serving the endurance athletes,” Zaltas said. “At this point, we are solely focused on athletes who want to put fuel in their body that will help them perform and succeed, whether it’s for a personal best or a podium finish.”

Recognizing this bold strategy would require critical changes for the PowerBar brand, Zaltas reached out to his longtime friend, The Brand Leader’s Executive Creative Director, Kyle Duford.

The Solution

Focus on a specific target audience and deliver a world-class customer experience.

Redefine the Brand Identity.

As Zaltas and Federico strategized PowerBar’s brand refresh, they worked with The Brand Leader, assessing the company’s current branding challenges and identifying four primary goals for the rebrand initiative.

• Give the brand a bold, high-energy look and feel, one that would provide a consistent visual impression across every form of communication (website, social media, print materials, etc.).
• Create messaging that resonates with endurance athletes who want to perform at their best.
• Highlight the science behind PowerBar product development.
• Streamline the user experience, and makes it easy for customers to find and purchase the products they need.

With these objectives identified, The Brand Leader’s design and development teams worked to create a best-in-class website that breathes new life into the legacy brand and helps PowerBar accomplish their ambitious goals.

Results

• 10%

  faster site speed

• 307%

  increase organic traffic

• 82%

  increase in average order value

Embracing the Power of Partnership

Within just a few weeks of the website launch, the results of PowerBar’s collaboration with The Brand Leader’s spoke for themselves. The site speed saw dramatic improvement, giving visitors and customers an improved online experience. Updates to the brand’s SEO and social media strategies generated a remarkable increase in the site’s organic traffic. And perhaps most importantly, customers’ average order value increased by more than 80%.

“Since we started working with The Brand Leader, it feels like we’ve created a bigger team, yet the same team. I’ve worked with agencies throughout my career, and the best ones are when you feel like you’re working with a team — I feel that with The Brand Leader. The spirit is the same. It’s a sporting spirit, and it feels like [TBL] are trying to be inside what we’re trying to do. And you have to be in it to do something cool and creative.”

In a competitive industry focused on athletic performance, it’s no coincidence that exceptional teamwork played a critical role in the success of PowerBar’s rebrand.