How we launched six new Yumi’s products into Coles with demand already waiting, outselling the range they replaced within two weeks.

Our client, Yumi’s has a permanent place in our office refrigerator. And in July 2026, Yumi's launched six new products into Coles nationwide, all within days of each other:

• Chimichurri Dip
• Hot Honey Dip
• Carrot & Sriracha Dip
• Dill Pickle Veggie Bites
• Hash Browns
• Spicy Carrot & Sriracha Fritters

Yes, these have now found their way into our HQ fridge.

But a good launch deserves tens of thousands more fridges. And six SKUs also make for a lot of new faces in the chilled aisle at Coles. 

When it comes to supermarket retail, a slow start isn’t something you can fix later. Not to be dramatic but it's kinda make or break.

So, we flipped the usual Paid Social approach that digital marketing agencies typically abide by.

Instead of launching first then testing / optimising after, we spent months building demand before a single product hit the shelf. Our in-house Creative team made a Reels-first content mix in-house. Our sister agency, Sticki brought in creators who know their way around a weeknight dinner. We tested every format against the others, so the budget followed evidence, not assumptions.

By the time each product landed, Aussie shoppers nationwide were already primed and waiting for them.

Shelf space in a supermarket is a big bet.

Retailers commit space based on how fast they expect a product to sell. A slow first few weeks puts more at risk than an ad budget – the range itself, the relationship with the retailer, and the business case Yumi’s had spent months building internally.

That meant our usual playbook of launching, watching and then optimising wasn’t good enough. Once the product was on shelf, there was no time to learn on the fly. 

Demand had to exist before day one, not be discovered after it.

Which means teaser campaigns, hype builds and awareness pieces long before these new products hit the shelves, but we’ll get to that in a minute. 

Yumi’s had a secondary challenge too. 

Their ad account ran several types of ad formats and content types side by side – which, don’t get us wrong, is an extremely good thing. Creative testing is of utmost importance when it comes to any high-performing and well strategised Meta Ads infrastructure. In it, we had:

• Static brand creative
• In-house UGC (user-generated-style content)
• Influencer content uploaded manually
• Partnership Ads

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All of it was competing for the same budget, so nobody could say which approach to quickly develop more of or invest in further.

Creator content was our biggest unknown. 

Handing creative control to external voices at scale during the launch window Yumi’s could least afford to get wrong, is a real risk. It needed to prove itself.

Our brief?

1. Build enough anticipation that shoppers would add these products to their basket the moment they saw them.
2. Prove which content was driving it, to confidently put more money behind what worked.

Yumi's new SKUs didn’t sit there waiting to be noticed.

• Within two weeks of launch, weekly sales of the three new dips had overtaken the four products they replaced, beating anything the retired range ever sold. Sales kept climbing through August, so this was sustained demand, not a spike and fade.
• Video drove 96% of all post engagements.
• Video clicks generated 4.38% click-through rates on average. 
• Hook rate hit 35.7% – meaning more than a third of viewers stayed past the first three seconds, with industry benchmarks for “good” hook rates sitting around 25% on Meta Ads.
• Creator Partnership Ads averaged an 11.25% click-through rate – the strongest of the three creator formats tested.
• Sticki’s creators brought a combined 3.28 million organic followers on top of paid reach, meaning millions of eyes acquired well before the big launch. 

Once the products were available at Coles, our pre-launch impact was immediate and undeniable.

Melissa Makris, Yumi’s Marketing & Innovation Manager, summed it up:

“Chimichurri is absolutely smashing it in sales! Hot Honey is a close second and amazingly, after only being on shelf for a couple of days, Dill Pickle bites are running off the shelf... I truly believe it was the teaser activity that created such hit the ground running sales.”

As a digital marketing agency, one of our big wishes before heading into 2027 is that brands, advertisers, our industry and shoppers as a whole realise there’s a LOT more to creative and ad content than meets the eye.  

A video’s not just a video. A graphically designed static doesn’t just have randomly placed elements for no reason. Instead, intentional creative strategy goes behind everything we produce – and for Yumi’s, here are a few considerations that guided all our ads. 

It was a tiered rollout strategy, built from scratch six months before launch.

Teaser, launch, then an ongoing pipeline of content the weeks after. Our aim was to turn curiosity into “I’m grabbing that the second I see it” before anyone could actually purchase, and between June and August, the account ran through all three phases.

Reels built for Reels.

DataSauce’s Creative team designed video content specifically made for Reels. Vertical 9:16, sound on and a strong hook in the first three seconds.

We weren’t resizing TV ads. More than 60% of the time people spend on Meta goes to Reels, so the creative had to feel like it belonged there.

The mix was wide on purpose:

1. ASMR crunch sounds
2. Taste tests
3. Recipes
4. Graphic animations
5. AI-generated video
6. UGC montages

Different hooks per product.

What makes Hash Browns appealing isn’t what makes Hot Honey Dip appealing, so no single concept could carry the whole range.

And when it comes to the category of food, there’s no one demographic it best caters to. Food is universal. We needed ads that resonated with the home chef, the busy university student, the mum of four, the Managing Director looking for snacks for the office.

Reels gave us room to run ASMR alongside recipe inspo alongside unscripted taste tests – all with one same goal: get shoppers wanting before Yumi’s products were even available.

Test, don’t assume.

Knowing that Meta’s best practice (and great love for Reels) meant odds were, videos would outperform, we could have started this entire campaign by going all in on video. 

But our digital strategists ran it against statics and carousels instead, so the format had to earn its budget.

It did. Video ended up carrying around 75% of spend across 31 of 44 ads, because of how it performed, not habit. The test also turned up something we didn’t expect.

Carousels, which did phenomenally on Yumi’s organic socials, fell flat in paid. 

For an appetite-driven snack category, a still image couldn’t do what three seconds of sound and movement could – make dips and veggie bites look and sound enticing enough to save the date and later head to Coles for.

Creators who actually cook.

This is where our sister-agency, Sticki came in. 

You already know they specialise in influencer content, and this campaign specifically saw the Sticki team source mid-tier, macro and mega creators matched to Yumi’s audience – reaching 3.28 million organic followers.

Creators’ briefs were open but focused. Recipe ideas and hacks that make people want to buy and try for themselves.

• Taste tests that land on a recipe inspired by the flavour
• Recipe-led videos that open on the finished dish as the hook

All ideas stayed everyday and achievable (e.g. one-tray bakes, lunchbox hacks, high-protein meals, weeknight dinners) and one of Yumi’s new products was always framed as the hero ingredient, sometimes paired with Yumi’s favourites like falafels or hommus.

Yumi’s didn’t have time to work out what worked after launch – so we brought our heads together to work it out before.

Months of Reels-first teaser content made the products familiar. Sticki’s creators gave people real reasons to cook with them. Testing every format against the others meant the budget went where it earned its keep.

And by the time six new products actually hit Coles, shoppers already knew what they were looking for.

Want to see more of what Sticki and its creators can do? Check out their case studies here. 

Launching something new and can’t afford a slow start? We're a digital agency in Melbourne that's done a LOT of that this year, from dips like these to all-new coffee and jelly too. 

Speak to us today.