Cracking Reddit’s Culture Code
How Which? Unlocked ROI by Embracing Reddit's Culture Code and Community First Engagement
£7.80
ROI vs £2.40 portfolio average
1.6x
longer on site than visitors from other social platforms
+12.4
point lift in brand awareness
About Company
Which? is the UK's leading consumer advocacy organisation, providing independent product reviews and advice to help people make better purchasing decisions.
Company size
Mid-Market
Industry
Media & Publishing
Brainlabs featured services
Paid Social
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Speak to a BrainlabberElevate Which? Beyond its legacy of product reviews to be seen as a true consumer advocate
For Which?, trust is paramount. As the UK's consumer champion, they stand for clarity, yet in an increasingly crowded and fragmented media landscape, their greatest challenge is maintaining this trust and confidently enabling consumers to exercise the right to choose.
So we needed to move beyond traditional advertising to establish a genuine presence and overcome three critical barriers:
Key friction points:
- Relevance: Keeping the brand top-of-mind in a market flooded with misinformation.
- Timing: Reaching consumers exactly when they are seeking for authentic consumer experiences.
- Impact: Ensuring every pound invested delivered a measurable return and drive W?'s ambition. The ultimate goal was to elevate the brand beyond a simple service provider, positioning it as the true consumer advocate, particularly in the digital space where peer-to-peer conversation and authentic feedback can strongly influence purchasing decisions.
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The Strategy: Leverage high-intent discovery fueled by a community first media approach
Brainlabs identified Reddit as an underutilised community-based search engine. With data showing the Which? core audience is 2.2x more likely to use forums for research, Reddit’s ecosystem of high-intent advice-seekers felt like the right platform to meet and align with Which? Core audience mindset, making it a natural and effective environment for delivering Which?’s answers and solutions.
Following strong initial performance results, we committed to a two-year intensive testing roadmap to adapt to Reddit’s unique culture code, adding value rather than disrupting the experience. By engaging in high-stakes discussions around consumers matters, we positioned Which? as a trusted ally, helping consumers navigate their choices with ease.
To turn this insight into action, Brainlabs deployed a three-pillar strategy designed to stop interrupting users and start helping them.
1. Precision Targeting with native placements (Finding the Right consumer matter)
We moved beyond broad demographics. By leveraging Reddit’s unique interest-based targeting, we placed Which? directly into subreddits where high-stakes discussions were already happening. We didn't hunt for users; we hunted for intent aligning content with specific interests and consumer concerns.
2. Radically authentic, with relevant content approach (Speaking the Language)
On Reddit, overt advertising gets ignored (or downvoted). To build trust, Brainlabs utilised Reddit’s AI copywriter tools to fine-tune our creative, ensuring it felt native, helpful, and conversational. We committed to being "authentically present" rather than "behaving like an advertiser."
3. Engaging content using straightforward & educational format (Stopping the Scroll)
We utilised Reddit’s high-impact formats to foster deeper dwell time, and spark conversations starting with:
Category Takeovers (CTO): dominating specific conversation category such as Travel, Grocery & Loyalty Programs, or Financial Services to own the moment when consumers are most engaged and decision-ready.
Free Form Ads: Designed to read like short, informative articles, these ads deliver depth and context; offering a one-stop review experience to consumers rather than relying on brand-led slogans.
While the three-pillar approach set the strategic direction, it doesn’t fully account for the results achieved. A significant contributor was the strength of cross-agency collaboration and the ongoing support of Reddit’s strategy team over the past two years. This partnership enabled integrated planning across media, creative, and content, ensuring ideas were built with platform and community insight from the start. On a community-first platform like Reddit, this cross-agency planning and content strategy proved essential to executing work that felt native, purposed-led, and effective.
Following strong initial performance results, we committed to a two-year intensive testing roadmap to adapt to Reddit’s unique culture code, adding value rather than disrupting the experience. By engaging in high-stakes discussions around consumers matters, we positioned Which? as a trusted ally, helping consumers navigate their choices with ease.
To turn this insight into action, Brainlabs deployed a three-pillar strategy designed to stop interrupting users and start helping them.
1. Precision Targeting with native placements (Finding the Right consumer matter)
We moved beyond broad demographics. By leveraging Reddit’s unique interest-based targeting, we placed Which? directly into subreddits where high-stakes discussions were already happening. We didn't hunt for users; we hunted for intent aligning content with specific interests and consumer concerns.
2. Radically authentic, with relevant content approach (Speaking the Language)
On Reddit, overt advertising gets ignored (or downvoted). To build trust, Brainlabs utilised Reddit’s AI copywriter tools to fine-tune our creative, ensuring it felt native, helpful, and conversational. We committed to being "authentically present" rather than "behaving like an advertiser."
3. Engaging content using straightforward & educational format (Stopping the Scroll)
We utilised Reddit’s high-impact formats to foster deeper dwell time, and spark conversations starting with:
Category Takeovers (CTO): dominating specific conversation category such as Travel, Grocery & Loyalty Programs, or Financial Services to own the moment when consumers are most engaged and decision-ready.
Free Form Ads: Designed to read like short, informative articles, these ads deliver depth and context; offering a one-stop review experience to consumers rather than relying on brand-led slogans.
While the three-pillar approach set the strategic direction, it doesn’t fully account for the results achieved. A significant contributor was the strength of cross-agency collaboration and the ongoing support of Reddit’s strategy team over the past two years. This partnership enabled integrated planning across media, creative, and content, ensuring ideas were built with platform and community insight from the start. On a community-first platform like Reddit, this cross-agency planning and content strategy proved essential to executing work that felt native, purposed-led, and effective.
The results: Unprecedented Efficiency
A comprehensive Media Mix Modelling (MMM) analysis isolated Reddit’s direct impact on revenue. The results were stark:
£7.80 Return on Investment: For every £1 spent on Reddit, Which? generated £7.80.
3x Efficiency: This significantly outperformed the overall paid marketing portfolio average ROI of £2.40.
Crucially, Reddit’s efficiency is more comparable with Brand Paid Search (£9.30) and far exceeds Non-Brand Search (£1.86). This proves that Reddit captures high-intent "community researchers" effectively, behaving more like a search engine than a social feed.
Engagement & Brand Lift
The Which? and Brainlabs partnership validates a new truth for digital marketers: Community engagement is a hard-nosed driver of commercial performance.
By shifting from an advertiser-centric mindset to a community-first approach, we transformed Reddit from a "niche" platform into a primary conversational engine for growth. Since this first campaign launch, and the strong performance, Brainlabs and Which? have expanded their partnership with Reddit, unlocking new opportunities to adopt a community-led approach and positioning Reddit as a primary channel in building and strengthening consumer trust.
Data shows Reddit is under-invested but offers huge scaling potential for Which? And brands that embrace its community language. For Which?, we will extend the partnership beyond paid media, using community insights with Reddit community intelligence dashboard to develop a robust organic strategy. With Redditors actively seeking advice on everything today, from home appliances to tech, Which? can leverage its vast offering and social ambitions, unlocking future opportunities across organic, paid, and earned media for targeted subcommunities.
£7.80 Return on Investment: For every £1 spent on Reddit, Which? generated £7.80.
3x Efficiency: This significantly outperformed the overall paid marketing portfolio average ROI of £2.40.
Crucially, Reddit’s efficiency is more comparable with Brand Paid Search (£9.30) and far exceeds Non-Brand Search (£1.86). This proves that Reddit captures high-intent "community researchers" effectively, behaving more like a search engine than a social feed.
Engagement & Brand Lift
- #1 in CTR: the strongest performance across the entire media mix.
- High Quality Traffic: Reddit users spent 1.6x more time on site compared to users from other social platforms. A time on site that keeps growing year over year and correlate nicely with our smarter targeting and deployment of relevant contents and formats.
- Brand Impact: Beyond clicks, we successfully shifted perception.Targeting specific communities via CTO, was far more effective than broad interest targeting, driving a +5.4 point lift in Aided Brand Awareness. Furthermore, high-stakes financial topics resonated most deeply, with "Mortgage Rates" content driving a +12.4 lift in awareness. FreeForm Ads proved to be the most powerful format for memory, driving a massive +11.5 point lift in Ad Awareness. Together, these results demonstrate that high-impact placements and native formats successfully position Which? as the ally for confident decision-making.
The Which? and Brainlabs partnership validates a new truth for digital marketers: Community engagement is a hard-nosed driver of commercial performance.
By shifting from an advertiser-centric mindset to a community-first approach, we transformed Reddit from a "niche" platform into a primary conversational engine for growth. Since this first campaign launch, and the strong performance, Brainlabs and Which? have expanded their partnership with Reddit, unlocking new opportunities to adopt a community-led approach and positioning Reddit as a primary channel in building and strengthening consumer trust.
Data shows Reddit is under-invested but offers huge scaling potential for Which? And brands that embrace its community language. For Which?, we will extend the partnership beyond paid media, using community insights with Reddit community intelligence dashboard to develop a robust organic strategy. With Redditors actively seeking advice on everything today, from home appliances to tech, Which? can leverage its vast offering and social ambitions, unlocking future opportunities across organic, paid, and earned media for targeted subcommunities.
£7.80
ROI vs £2.40 portfolio average
1.6x
longer on site than visitors from other social platforms
+12.4
point lift in brand awareness
