THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Nestle’s Harvest Gourmet brand sought to break into the market of plant-based meat substitutes by introducing the Incredible Burger as a great solution to help flexitarian Australians incorporate more plant-based foods into their diet in an exciting way.
GOAL
Reach and engage Tasty’s foodie audience by providing delicious and unique plant-based recipe inspiration to help drive consideration of the Harvest Gourmet Incredible Burger among flexitarians and consumers interested in incorporating more plant-based foods into their diet.
STRATEGIC INSIGHT
The demand for plant-based alternatives is growing as consumers look for different ways to eat more meat-free meals. One third of Australians are now either flexitarian or are reducing their intake of meat. Harvest Gourmet wants to ensure consumers don't feel like they need to compromise on the foods they love - especially burgers - by providing an excellent plant-based alternative to meat patties without missing out on the total burger cooking and eating experience.
MAIN IDEA
Harvest Gourmet looked to Tasty to build brand awareness and encourage health conscious and flexitarian Australians to try the Incredible Burger through an engaging recipe video. The 4-way format was chosen to highlight the versatility and deliciousness of the Incredible Burger by demonstrating different ways to incorporate the product in a variety of dishes including a burger bowl, burger wrap, mushroom burger as well as classic-style burger.
Tasty Recipe: MEAT-FREE BURGERS 4 WAYS!
DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY
The media was distributed across Facebook and Buzzfeed.com to reach an engaged audience on multiple platforms. The video was targeted to the Tasty, BuzzFeed, and Goodful audiences as well as relevant interest groups such as healthy eating, vegan, vegetarian, food, and cooking in order to generate mass reach and drive conversation.
RESULTS
Using custom audience targeting to reach specific interest groups that love Tasty’s content and Harvest Gourmet’s product proved successful. The Meat-Free Burger 4-Ways video overdelivered on both platforms, producing an engagement rate 4x Facebook benchmarks and nearly double the typical VCR!
A sentiment analysis on Facebook showed that reaction to the campaign was majority positive. Many viewers commented that they want to try one of the recipes or said it increased their interest in vegetarian/vegan food. Nearly 2,000 users saved the videos in order to come back for the recipe another time.
We also conducted a forced exposure study to test the attitudinal impact of the video. Multiple branding touchpoints, including prominent product shots and text overlay within the recipes, translated to a double-digit boost in awareness of Harvest Gourmet’s meat-alternative burger. The 26% point increase exceeded the Tasty benchmark by more than 2x!
The four ways video also had a significant positive impact on favourability towards the brand and persuaded viewers to say they were very likely to consider purchasing the product in the near future.
Brand lift results were even stronger among viewers who are trying to limit their meat consumption. The video inspired this key target to cook with the Incredible Burger; following exposure, 7 in 10 flexitarians said they would make a recipe with Harvest Gourmet in the near future.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The Meat-Free Burger 4-Ways video was a highly effective way of building awareness of Harvest Gourmet while showcasing the versatility of the Incredible Burger. As the plant-based movement continues to grow while consumers look to incorporate more flexitarian foods into their diets, the opportunity increases for Harvest Gourmet to build further awareness of the Incredible Burger by providing the vast Tasty audience many more delicious plant-based recipes that they'll love.
"It has been a pleasure to work with the team at Tasty BuzzFeed! We've created some brilliant content together, and are looking forward to continuing this exciting partnership."
-Rochelle Boulos | Assistant Brand Manager | Foods Nestlé Australia Ltd