Agency: Goodstuff
Category: Best content partnership
(Small budget)
Challenge
Encona has been a household staple for many years, ranked third in the Hot & BBQ Sauces category. The Encona range includes sauces, marinades and chilli jams, but due to uneven distribution and recent label changes, most people could only identify its hero product: West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce. Encona also faced the ongoing challenge of a perceived lack of difference in the category. Encona needed to differentiate its brand and drive product awareness by offering a range of cultural experiences rather than a single proposition.
Approach
With a modest budget and a need to showcase the wide range and versatility of its products in trusted environments, Encona decided its brand challenges would be best met by a single channel — news brands — and by working with a single partner. With a third of its audience identifying as foodies, the Guardian was chosen to engage Encona’s 18+ ‘Scorcher Squad’ audience.
Using the insight that food is now a way for people to express themselves, Encona worked with the Guardian to create a ‘World of Flavour’ – a series of 60-second recipe videos featuring social teasers, online articles, food takeovers and a quiz. The content programme was fronted by award-winning food writer Melissa Thompson, with the full recipes published on the Guardian’s website. Engagement was driven through promotion across the news brand’s online food and lifestyle sections, supplemented by paid spend on social.
Results
The campaign was a huge success, smashing through its unique user target by 242% and an average dwell time of two minutes 18 seconds – 48 seconds more than the Guardian’s benchmark. Overall, the partnership delivered a whopping 47 million impressions across nine UK solus containers. The Guardian’s audience panel identified the Encona flavours they would like to see in the future and its ‘Voices Forum’ returned importance feedback on taste, price point and availability of the products.
