Hong Kong-based food company Lee Kum Kee wanted to grow brand awareness in Europe. Working with Media Bounty, they developed the Cook N’ Tell social media campaign—allowing users to try the products and share their thoughts on the products. The campaign generated 12,300 sample requests and 290 product reviews. Media Bounty discuss the work
Brief
Lee Kum Kee is a pioneer of Asian sauces and condiments with a heritage that extends beyond 125 years. With an ever growing number of people developing a taste for exotic spicy foods and bold flavours, Lee Kum Kee was looking to build international awareness across its authentic product ranges in the UK and Europe.
The aim was to encourage trial and advocacy amongst amateur cooks aged 25 and over who prefer cooking dishes from scratch but may not have sampled the Lee Kum Kee range which is used widely across China, and so to educate and inspire people about the authenticity and superior taste of the brand. Demonstrating the versatility of the product range in everyday non-Chinese cookery was also a prerequisite of this campaign.
Strategy
Lee Kum Kee is an international brand and a symbol of quality and trust. As a century-old ethnic enterprise, Lee Kum Kee applies its core value of “considering others’ interests” at every level of its business operation.
Lee Kum Kee also lives by the principles of “pragmatism, integrity and constant entrepreneurship”. One of the company’s key missions is to promote Chinese cuisines across the world. The other is to safeguard its quality assurance policy, closely monitoring each aspect of the production process all the way from the farm to the fork, to ensure only the finest ingredients go into their sauces.
Lee Kum Kee wanted to educate people about the story and authenticity of its range of cooking sauces in an interactive and engaging environment, allowing users to discover new recipes, experiment with dishes and then share their reviews of the products they had used.
Execution
Media Bounty created a Facebook app with a design that would appeal to all levels of cooking ability. This app was the central hub of the Cook N’ Tell campaign, allowing consumers from around the UK to request a sample from the Lee Kum Kee range. We then further incentivised consumers to leave a product review once they’d tried a sauce for themselves. These reviews were then used to drive peer endorsement.
Over a six week period, 1,500 sauce samples – Premium Oyster Sauce, Plum Sauce and Chiu Chow Chilli Oil—were given away with specially designed postcards directing people back to the app. Additional reach was delivered by a targeted Facebook ad campaign and media competition coverage in food and lifestyle titles such as Delia Online and Love Food. Above the line, Media Bounty designed three print adverts for supporting press advertising, which ran in Time Out, At Home, Waitrose and Jamie magazine.
Through consumer reviews and a recipe section, the app also looked to educate consumers on how best to use the ingredients and inspire them to try the sauces at home; increasing the amount of times they were using the three different sauces in everyday dishes and recipes. To reinforce the messages, one of the recipe videos from our series—which featured the chef and writer Arthur Potts-Dawson making a roast ham—was embedded into the app for consumers to view. The aim was to highlight examples of non-traditional Chinese recipes to demonstrate the versatility of the products in everyday cuisine.
Result
The campaign generated 12,300 sample requests and 290 product reviews, many of which expressed an intent to purchase the sauces. There were 4,790,827 Facebook advertising impressions and 24,815 app visits, with 82.52 per cent of these unique. With a potential media reach of more than 2.5 million people, there was a 40 per cent opt-in rate to the Lee Kum Kee customer database.