The Made in Chelsea star turned business proprietor weighs in on the celebrity-founded model hype, sharing his ideas on easy methods to build longevity.
Jamie Laing co-founded the Candy Kittens vegan sweets model in 2012 whereas starring in Channel 4 actuality present Made in Chelsea. Today, you will discover his fruit-flavored confectionary in all main UK retailers, the model having constructed a reputation for itself outdoors of Laing’s preliminary actuality present fame.
Laing, whose great-great-grandfather created the McVitie’s digestive biscuit, tells The Drum that elementary to the model’s success is the style of the sweets themselves.
“What’s great about Candy Kittens is that loads of our consumers have this emotional connection because they’ve seen it being built on a TV show. But if you don’t know who I am, you are still buying the sweets because they are the best sweets out there.”
There has been an explosion in celebrity-founded foods and drinks manufacturers over the previous few years, probably the most notable being Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime vitality drink, which reportedly racked up over $377m in gross sales in 2023. Other examples embrace Ed Sheeran’s sizzling sauce Tingly Teds and Gillian Anderson’s comfortable drinks business G Spot.
While Laing acknowledges that celebrities and content material creators are in a very good position to launch manufacturers, he additionally raises issues that “consumers will start to not quite believe in the products that are coming out because they’ll just think they’re just being sold to.” He references the instance of Russian tennis participant Maria Sharapova’s confectionary model Sugarpova, which he says are simply “repackaged sweets.”
“From my experience, we’re seeing that when people and influencers create brands, they tend to cut corners because they want to get it on the shelves quicker or they want to get it done faster.” Whereas, he says, Candy Kittens had been developed for 2 years earlier than hitting cabinets.
Building a ‘generational brand’
Celebrities at the moment are trying past the ambassador offers to spin out businesses of their very own; for instance, David Beckham parted methods with Diageo-owned Haig Club with plans to launch his personal whisky model. But the “issue,” Laing says, is that it requires actually laborious work and a dedication to be in it for the lengthy haul.
“Running a business is a completely full-time job; you have to put 100% into it. God, it takes so long. If anyone ever asks me about running a business, I say strap in for 10 years.”
Co-founder Ed Williams runs the day-to-day operations full-time, which supplies Laing the time to build his profile and, in flip, increase the model. Laing takes possession of the advertising, drawing on his abilities in digital content material creation by way of his 1 million followers on Instagram, plus numerous podcasts.
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Marketing up to now has been centered on digital and social, together with model collaborations like its recent hookup with BrewDog, charity partnerships with the LGBTQ+ charity The Albert Kennedy Trust and sponsoring Forest Green Rovers soccer membership.
Now the model is maturing, the following section can be to get more difficult and bolder in its advertising. “More billboards and more stunts – that is the road we are going to go down,” says Laing.
A separation between movie star and the business is the opposite essential factor; in any other case, it’s simply “merchandise,” says Laing. “At the beginning, we wanted to make sure I wasn’t so attached to that brand because you are resting all of your longevity on an individual, and as we know from my early days on Made in Chelsea, I probably wasn’t the most reliable.”
Laing is indifferent from the product packaging and solely options on the ‘About Us’ tab on the corporate web site. “There has to be a slight separation; otherwise, what are you selling? You could just be selling lawnmowers.”
No Nasties marketing campaign
Candy Kittens’ main USP is that every one of its merchandise are vegan. While its level of distinction has served it nicely in its first decade of development, Laing and Williams now wish to use Candy Kittens’ vegan credentials to advocate for change throughout the wider candy trade.
“When we started the business, we had no idea there was meat in sweets – I didn’t even know what gelatine meant,” says Williams. “But now we’ve seen it in the flesh, literally. It’s pretty grim. You don’t want that stuff in your food.”
Candy Kittens has developed the ‘No Nasties’ model platform, the intention of which, says Williams, “is to educate consumers about animal products in sweets and then, secondly, to show them that Candy Kittens is the answer.”
The first artistic from its ‘No Nasties’ platform was an out-of-home stunt with Laing painted to mix in with the billboard behind. The idea performs on the ‘hidden’ substances in sweets. Williams says the billboard is the beginning of the model pushing into extra stunt-based advertising to “ruffle the feathers” of the confectionery trade.
“The more we can shock and surprise people with these ideas [like the billboard] and highlight that hidden message, the more fun it will be,” says Williams. “We are trying to be as challenging and rebellious towards the industry as possible. But without losing that sense of fun and personality that Candy Kittens is known for.”
This is the place Laing’s persona can really be leveraged. “People see me as a light-hearted individual,“ he says. “But, perhaps by shifting into the entrepreneurial space and having that light-hearted person as a founder, they will understand that things can be done in a fun and light-hearted way.”
