The world’s best Creators approach TikTok differently than Brands — one group receives rich engagement and massive organic reach for their serial content, and the latter gets to pay-to-play, uploading random #NationalSomethinganotherDay that’s arguably “not worth it.” How do we flip the script, and approach TikTok like a Creator, and produce original content that audiences truly want to watch?
To achieve this, we needed time on the For You page. By and large, Creators control the For You Page, so what’s a brand to do? Become a Creator, of course.
After meeting Chef Rick Petralia, Fazoli’s Director of Culinary Innovation, we realized that the brand is much bigger than free breadsticks. The creativity in his test kitchen was the missing ingredient, and his craziest #stuntfood recipes were just what we needed to break the 4th wall by riffing on famous fast food competitor’s menu items — Can you serve McDonald’s Big Mac in a bowl? Can you fit Fazoli’s Spaghetti & Meatballs into a Crunchwrap Supreme? How would you make Cool Ranch Doritos from scratch with pasta chips?
Fazoli’s’ upbeat, playful brand lends itself to trying new recipe mashups.
Engineered for the TikTok algorithm, shot and edited like popular content often on your For You page, and just the right amount of “No you didn’t, Chef Rick!!” to share with friends, Fazoli’s TikTok Test Kitchen was born.
With over 3,000,000+ views and an improved Quality Score for @fazolisitalian, the paid-media efforts have experienced a 400% increase in performance vs non Test Kitchen content, and a 736% increase in performance vs benchmark paid social on Facebook ($1.97 CPM on TikTok vs $14.49 CPM on Facebook).
Fortunately, no Cease & Desist letters (yet).
