Uncle Ben’s is the top-selling branded rice in the US with softening sales and household penetration: consumers don’t deviate from the perimeter of the grocery store, where meats, dairy and vegetables are, and research showed that traditional rice shoppers are getting older and consuming fewer side-dishes, and young adults are cooking less and eating out more often.

In 2012, the Begin With Ben™ campaign was developed to show how starting with rice can lead to better meals, more diverse cuisine and more family time. Uncle Ben’s wanted to inspire families to make healthier choices, because habits we learn as children inform decisions we make throughout life.

The Ben’s Beginners™ program’s mission is to get kids cooking. Launched as a Facebook-driven nationwide competition, parents were challenged to cook a kid-friendly recipe with their child and share their experience via video on our Facebook page. The winner received $20,000, was featured on The Rachael Ray Show and received a $50,000 school cafeteria makeover.

Regarding research to support our objectives, various studies showed that 9-14 year olds who ate dinner with their families ate more fruits and vegetables and less soda and fried foods. Family meal frequency during adolescence predicted higher intakes of fruit, vegetables, dark-green and orange vegetables and lower intakes of soft drinks during young adulthood. One study found that children who have regular meals with their parents do better in every way: 42% less likely to drink, 50% less likely to smoke and 66% less likely to smoke marijuana.

As part of our movement to get kids cooking while laying the foundation for creating healthy eating habits, Uncle Ben’s® launched the Ben’s Beginners™ Cooking Contest, a fully integrated campaign and contest that invited parents and kids between the ages of 5-12 to submit videos of themselves cooking healthy rice dishes together.

The 3 primary objectives with the Ben’s Beginners™ Cooking Contest were:

•Drive contest entries, new “Likes” to the Uncle Ben’s® Facebook page and engagement.

• Increase awareness of the Uncle Ben’s Brand® online and within schools and communities.

• Increase purchase intent of Uncle Ben’s® through engagement and Facebook sharing.

Contest Results:

•700+ videos submitted and over 59,000 votes were cast.

•The Uncle Ben’s® Facebook “likes” increased by 84%.

•An outpouring of positive comments from family’s thanking us for helping them get their kids in the kitchen and creating more family time.

•We lifted brand perceptions of the Uncle Ben’s® family attributes 17% and increased Uncle Ben’s® purchase intent by 22%.

•813m earned impressions were generated including USA Today, SELF, Huffington Post TV, About.com, and MSNBC.com.

Grand Prize Winner Event:

•700+ hundred students, parents, teachers and community members attended the reveal at our winner’s school.

•Local print and broadcast media attended including Fox and NBC affiliates, as well as Fox Network National. The grand prize winner also appeared on her local NBC affiliate morning show, and did an interview on CNN Headline News Now.

•Coverage from the event totaled more than 38m impressions with over 50 media placements.

We utilized contestants’ personalities and stories to drive engagement and media attention. We provided them with PR “toolkits” to garner support from local media and community members (including press release templates, ideas for contacting local morning show producers, etc.) to use with local media and community members.

We provided finalists with video cameras to capture their NYC moments while there for The Rachael Ray Show and packaged footage to share on the Uncle Ben’s® Facebook page.

We executed an event at the winner’s school to coincide with the winner announcement on The Rachael Ray Show. We worked with media under embargo and invited them to attend the announcement that was made via a feed to The Rachael Ray Show. We worked with photographers and videographers to capture reactions once they found out they had won the $50,000 school cafeteria makeover and packaged this video footage to include in media outreach.

It is no secret that childhood obesity rates are on the rise in the United States and have been for some time. The general consensus from the large body of research in this area indicates that this trend is attributable to bad food choices and bad eating habits. The Uncle Ben’s Brand® knew that when you start a meal with rice, you end up with a meal that’s better for you so they set out to help reverse this trend by starting a movement to change the way the world eats and bring excitement back into the kitchen.

The framework for the PR strategy was designed to have three distinct phases that meshed seamlessly with the pre-contest, contest, and post-contest timelines for Ben’s Beginners™.

Phase 1 – Generate buzz

•Leverage partnerships with celebrity spokesperson, Angie Harmon, and media partner, The Rachael Ray Show, to create excitement and drive participation in Ben’s Beginners™.

Phase 2 – Drive votes and maximize participation

•Leverage contestant’s willingness to drive votes for their videos by encouraging self promotion in their schools and with their local media.

Phase 3 – Celebrate the winners

•Leverage the grand prize winner’s enthusiasm for the brand and reinforce key messages with local and national broadcast.

To ensure success, we worked with Uncle Ben’s to align with influential partners and leverage online relationships to maximize exposure for the brand and the contest as well as provide contestants and media with immediate understanding of the contest’s key messages.