The online dating industry matches people by everything from looks, age, and race to their star signs. But this billion-dollar business forgot one thing that brings us together every day—the power of flavour. So Knorr teamed up with IBM’s Watson Cognitive Technology and built flavour profiles to match a group of singles by their favourite flavours. The online film, “Love at First Taste,” documents what happened when these singles, matched only by flavour, met over an intimate dinner. The film was delivered as preroll on YouTube. After watching the film, viewers could go to the campaign hub, take the same test, and discover and share their own flavour profiles.

At launch, we gave insights from our study to journalists and bloggers to create interest in the campaign. The buzzworthy film at the center of the campaign drove viewers to a hub where visitors could take the flavour quiz used to match the couples in our film and share their results online, spreading the word even further. In addition, recipes tailored to the 12 different flavour profiles we developed were promoted on social media through partnerships with Tastemade and Playbuzz social media.

The film ran as preroll on YouTube from April through the end of May 2016. The film was also posted to Knorr’s YouTube channel.

The campaign leveraged a few pieces of content (a preroll film, teaser videos, and a campaign hub with the flavour tool and custom recipes) and let viewers, influencers, and the press drive the conversation to the tune of 1.6 billion earned media impressions.

• Tier 1: Media Outputs - coverage depth (quality/quantity), tone and message delivery, purchase intent (survey)

The campaign received extensive coverage—almost entirely favourable—and was featured in media outlets ranging from the Harvard Business Journal to the Huffington Post and Daily Mail.

• Tier 2: Target Audience Outcomes - measurable changes in awareness, comprehension, perceptions/attitudes/ opinions, and target behaviors/actions/responses achieved

The campaign saw a definite and positive shift in perception of the brand and behavior among its target audience. Brand appeal went up 7.6%, brand favourability increased 10%, and purchase intent in key markets rose 15%.

• Tier 3: Business Outcomes – campaign's measurable effect on sales/revenues/profits, market share, stock valuation, brand equity, reputation scores and other traditional marketing and business metrics

During and immediately following the campaign’s run, market share which had been on the decline, rose 1.4 % globally.

“Love at First Taste” owes its success to a PR approach utilizing social media, influencers, and journalists to extend the campaign’s reach far beyond media dollars spent. To generate the campaign’s 1.6 billion earned impressions, we built a multichannel ecosystem that elicited viewer reaction at every point. Key findings from our research were released to the press to generate interest in the film. The film, and teasers on social media, then directed viewers to a hub where they could take the flavour test used to match the singles in our film and share the results, spreading the word even further.

Our target was millennials, 75% of whom use online dating and 65% of whom also describe themselves as foodies.

The campaign used online media: YouTube for the film, social media sites for the teasers, and a campaign hub on Knorr.com.

We built a multichannel ecosystem to illicit viewer reaction at every point. We gave bloggers and journalists insights from our research to generate interest in the film. The film was used to drive traffic to our campaign hub where visitors could discover their flavour profile and share it, spreading the word even further

We knew our audience had an appetite for our message. We just had to engage them in a manner that made Knorr relevant to their lives. So we created a film that spoke to their interests, namely food and other millennials, and made them look at flavour, and the brand, in a completely new way.

• Situation

Food brand Knorr was losing market share and needed to make an emotional connection with a younger generation of consumers, a target audience that typically forgoes “big food” brands for smaller, artisanal brands.

• Brief

The brief was simply to demonstrate the power of flavour to a millennial audience in a way that was relevant to them and would get them to reconsider the brand.

• Objectives

The objectives were threefold: To generate talkability among a younger audience, to build a relevant and emotional connection between our target and the 176-year-old food company, and to halt market share decline.