Food Rescue is a mobile web application that unites Google technology and Sainsbury’s data. Users simply tell the app which ingredients they want to use to find simple, inspirational recipes using food they might otherwise throw away. To show people how much of a difference their efforts make, Food Rescue tracks the amount of food and money saved with each recipe cooked. This information is then collated and visualised over a map of the UK, so that participants can see how much they are collectively rescuing in their own city, county and across the whole of the UK.

As this was the first ever campaign in the UK to trial voice-recognition display ads, the initiative generated great PR for both Google and Sainsbury’s. The average interaction time on the ad units was 20 seconds, up .53% from Sainsbury’s “Try” campaign. Interaction with the units were split at 41% using the microphone and 59% using the keyboard. The ads performed best on the Google Lightbox, with a 4.28% interaction rate.