Do you know what a business owner's fear smells like the first time they have to pour serious money into online marketing? It's a very particular odour. It's a blend of deep distrust of Facebook's algorithms, the worry that "those expensive pralines are guaranteed to shatter in transit," and years of experience telling them people buy chocolate mainly with their eyes, from a brightly lit shop window.
That's exactly how our first meeting with Šimon Sigel smelled. He was making fantastic, handmade chocolate in Bruntál. The product was absolute top-tier. One taste and you instantly know this is a completely different league. His business ran purely offline — he only had a presentational website, no e-shop. He knew that if he wanted to grow, he had to go online. He just didn't believe it.
This is the story of how we at LK Media took the forgettable "Čokoládovna Bruntál," threw it into a blender with a hefty dose of irreverence, and pulled out Brutal Choco — a brand that bites. And one that sold 400,000 CZK (≈ €16,000) worth of chocolate in a single Valentine's campaign.
Where it started: A masterpiece in invisible packaging
The situation before we stepped in was a textbook example of wasted potential. Šimon's chocolate tasted divine, made with care from the finest ingredients. But online, nobody knew it existed. Online sales weren't in the red — they weren't anything at all. They were at absolute zero.
The website was purely presentational — no e-shop, no online sales. The whole "Čokoládovna Bruntál" brand felt exactly the way it sounds — local, traditional and a little dull. In a flood of visual stimuli, it was easily lost in the crowd.
On top of that, Šimon was deeply convinced that fragile pralines and luxury bars simply couldn't be sold online at scale. Who would buy premium chocolate blind, without being able to smell it first? We had to prove him wrong — and build an e-shop entirely from scratch.
What we changed: From boring to a brutal experience
We knew minor tweaks to the old website wouldn't save us. We had to start from the ground up. We broke the whole project into three main pillars.
1. A complete rebrand: The birth of the toothy frog
First, we had to mercilessly kill off "Čokoládovna Bruntál." The insight was clear: the market is flooded with gold-trimmed boxes and curly lettering. We needed something people would remember instantly, something that grabs you by the eyes and has real guts.
We leaned into the genius loci — Bruntál has a reputation as a rugged, harsh region. We drew on a local legend about toothy frogs and landed on a new name that crackled with energy: Brutal Choco.
We set an entirely new tone of voice. Forget the polished talk about traditional recipes. Brutal Choco started speaking with cheek, confidence and, above all, humour. Claims like "The brand that bites. Eat it before it eats you," "Bru(n)tal chocolate" or "Harsh, brutal, addictive." Customers weren't just buying sweets — they were buying an attitude.
2. The e-shop as an experience: Where even an empty cart is fun
We didn't just want people clicking chocolate into a cart. We wanted them to enjoy every single step of the buying process. We wanted them to laugh while they shopped.
It all started with luxurious, visually stunning product photography. The contrast between the visually flawless, premium chocolate and the brutally funny copywriting worked brilliantly. We rewrote the product names. Instead of "Praline with hazelnut," customers were tossing Frog Teeth, Razz Balls or the Crunchy Avalanche into their carts.
We wrote a whole series of humorous transactional emails. Those dry, boring "your order number 123 has been received for processing" messages? We turned them into another reason to smile.
3. Performance marketing: Flooring the gas before Valentine's
When you've got a souped-up car with a great engine, you have to fill it with the right fuel. We started systematically building a social media community that responded instantly to the new visuals and cheeky tone.
The real litmus test was going to be paid campaigns on Meta. We launched the e-shop at the end of December. For the main test, we picked the approaching Valentine's Day. In February, we went all in. No cautious testing. We simply unleashed that angry frog.
Video ad samples
The numbers that speak
The Valentine's campaign laid bare what a strong, distinctive brand paired with a truly top-tier product can do. The results took the breath away — not just ours, but above all Šimon's.
And bear in mind we're talking about an extremely saturated, competitive industry. The European premium chocolate market is worth $13.79 billion and growing at 5.29% a year. Even so, we managed to break through.
The Food & Beverage segment has historically had the highest conversion rates of any industry — averaging around 4.5–6%. Thanks to a finely tuned checkout, we instantly joined the top tier. The median ROAS on Meta Ads for e-commerce is roughly 2.5x, and top performers reach 4.5x+. With punchy creative and humour, we scaled our campaigns very efficiently.
Thanks to its premium character, fantastic photos and a well-designed upsell, Brutal Choco comfortably exceeded the average order value in Czech e-commerce (around 1,150 CZK, ≈ €46). People added extra products to their carts simply because they were amused by the names.
But the biggest win wasn't the money. It was the reviews. Customers didn't just leave dry ratings. They wrote whole essays about how much the e-shop had entertained them. They praised the humour, shared the transactional emails and photographed the packaging.
5 hard lessons for your e-shop
A strong brand saves you in a saturated market. Even in a traditional field like premium chocolate, you can break through. Everyone has gold and curlicues. But the cheeky, toothy frog from Bruntál stole the attention for itself.
Premium food sells online when the whole package delivers. Customers don't need to hold the product if you offer an experience polished from A to Z. Flawless photos and great copy can convey taste through a screen.
Humour is the cheapest and best differentiator. Most e-shops take themselves deadly seriously. If you can genuinely make a customer laugh, you build a relationship that no small discount from a competitor will ever replace.
Transactional emails are hidden treasure. Don't treat them as dumb notifications. They're a fantastic marketing tool. People actually read them! Turn them into content people look forward to.
Hard data convinces even the biggest skeptic. You can be afraid, you can be a non-believer. But once you set the strategy right and the orders start rolling in, you'll change your mind.
The end of fear, the start of growth
"All those marketing investments I was so afraid of will probably pay for themselves this year without any trouble. I overhauled my entire business plan after Valentine's. Thanks to Lukáš and Lucka from LK MEDIA for pushing me toward something I didn't believe in."
— Šimon Siegel, owner of Brutal Choco