Audrey Madden: ‘At Huel we say: Be a speedboat, not an oil tanker’

The Wellness Exchange kicks off on Friday 14 October, marking the return of in-person Enterprise Nation Exchange events.

Are you an entrepreneur looking to start or grow a small business in the wellness industry? If so, The Wellness Exchange is the event for you.

Listen to industry experts, network with fellow small business owners and leave feeling inspired and fulfilled.

To get you started, Enterprise Nation chatted to Audrey Madden, a creative strategist at Huel and Wellness Exchange speaker, who shares her thoughts about being creative in this very special industry.

You can secure your Wellness Exchange tickets today.

First of all, tell us a little about yourself and what you do at Huel

“So I'm Audrey, I'm a creative strategist at Huel. Before this, I was at a branding agency in a general marketing role. I’ve been a content editor on the copywriting side as well, doing a lot of freelance before that and working at another social media agency.

"But I've finally landed in this position here where I feel like it's really just a bit of me - creative strategy is a bit more specialised than just general marketing.

“What I do at Huel is leading the in-house creative team. We have about five or six designers of different disciplines; we have motion designers, graphic designers, even packaging designers, and then we have a copywriter. We also have different content editors, so people that film content for TikTok and YouTube and stuff like that, a studio manager and I also have another strategist, thank God!

“I’ve been here for about two years now. When I first joined, it was just two designers and myself, and we were sitting within a performance marketing team. For that team, their whole goal is driving sales for the business through social media ads, and now we've grown into what we call a creative central hub, with a lot of different creatives and external partners, and it's just really exciting and a fun time to be involved!

“We have just some interesting brand challenges that everyone's very much up for solving. There’s so much motivation, and there are a lot of young, really smart, really driven people. So, it's exciting.”

How do you make sure your creative strategy is actually implemented within the business?

“Ah, good question. I think what's great about the creative hub is that we're the ones implementing it. My team are all the people that are making it a reality.

"We do sit within the marketing team, and we have a few different department heads that look after different things, whether it's performance marketing, content, or product marketing, and I worked really closely with all three of them to make sure that from the get-go, our marketing plan is hitting the brand challenges we need it to hit, and then trickling that down to the creative team.

 “I think what's great too is since we have this internal creative team, we're able to link all the other areas of the marketing team, whether that's CRM, organic, social or influencers, they all come to us for that creative element. We're all unified towards the same goal and we know what the business needs from us.”

What do you think it means to be creative when it comes to starting a business? And what are the significant benefits?

“It's essential really. When our founder founded this business, he had to think in a very different way from the average person, and I think any founder at The Wellness Exchange will understand that.

“The branding agency I came from was a small business, and two of the people that were key functions of the team were the founders, so I've always been in this setting, and you just have to be really smart, especially now, and think creatively about business issues.

"Even with spending money - you wouldn't think cost efficiency is that creative - but you have to be able to figure out how to be cost efficient and spend your money well. You have to think creatively about it.”

How do you think a small business can stand out when it comes to creative strategy planning and marketing?

“I know like a lot of the people have heard this before, but there’s such a benefit to being small and being nimble – at Huel we say: be a speed boat, not an oil tanker. Try and use that speed to your advantage.

“Sit down and seriously think about your brand challenges, and what people think about your brand – do they know what it is? And spend some time thinking of all the different solutions to the primary challenges you face, and you'll be surprised how quickly you'll be able to get through them and come up with solutions. But many business owners are afraid to go back to the drawing board regularly.

“Literally that process alone, I find the most fun – I’d imagine a lot of people do, and that process in a big company will take months or years, so being able to just have the freedom of sitting down and doing an audit of all of your challenges and then thinking about solutions is great.

"You could do that in an intense day or an intense week, and it’s so much quicker than what these big guys are doing.

“So just take advantage of it, like us!”

What is the best thing about working in the wellness industry?

“When I was looking to move companies, I had a list of what I wanted, and one was doing some good; I wanted to be doing good to the planet, and then I just felt like a bonus of me working at Huel was not only did I have a less guilty conscience because they care about the planet, but in the meantime, if I get a little bit healthier or eat a bit better, that's really nice.

“I think humans need to be healthy if the planet's going to be healthy, and it's a nice thing when your work overlaps with that, so it was one less thing to think about.

"If I was working somewhere (I don’t want to name names!) like a soft drink giant I’d also have to be externally thinking about going to the gym and eating healthily, for instance.”

Let’s move on to The Wellness Exchange, where you’ll be speaking! Why should wellness entrepreneurs attend? And what are you planning on discussing?

“It's all about networking. Meeting people is so important, and it’s nice meeting people who are in your same space. But it’s also great finding people coming at it from a different angle, too. If you're just staying in your small little pocket or niche, it's not always the most helpful.

“I'm still building my talk, and I'm getting really excited about it. I'm interested in looking at the main challenge I had coming into Huel and figuring out the sweet spot between short-term and long-term thinking, as well as performance versus brand.

“When you’re a small business or a start-up, the short term is so important and you want to see growth really quickly, and you don't want to spend a tonne of money that's un-trackable on this, as that's a big gamble.

“But then at the same time, short-term creative can sometimes be seen as just this cheap, not-as-good creative, and then visa-versa, the really big-bet creative campaigns are on the other end of the spectrum - they're super creative, but they're super expensive and you can't track them.

“It's just been interesting to figure out a balance and how those two can work together. Instead of choosing one or the other, or even somewhere in between. It's about working out a loop between the two, and how you actually connect each one.”

Secure your Wellness Exchange ticket today and hear from Audrey and a host of other industry experts in-person on Friday 14 October.