The pandemic saw a huge rise in people testing their culinary skills at home due to COVID restrictions and an emphasis on staying at home. 31% of families ate dinner at home every day compared to 18% pre-COVID (Supermarket News). First time chefs were brushing up on the basics, while experienced ones experimented more often. In this way, the pandemic led to a culinary revolution.
Together with Stop & Shop as their Digital AOR, AMP wanted to meet this cooking resurgence with a virtual cooking series to both inspire and support chefs of all levels. Our goal was to provide consumers with simple meal solutions for at-home cooking, ranging from new spins on food trends, to seemingly complex dishes made easy. With the ultimate goal of driving website visits, and online e-commerce grocery sales, we ensured that each recipe shared was easily shoppable with a direct click-to-cart on our website for delivery or curbside pickup, further emphasizing the ease of cooking at home with Stop & Shop.
AMP sought to uncover something new about cooking at home. We noticed the obvious trends like appliances and food hacks, but we also discovered something more interesting - the increased need to cook for specific needs and occasions. For example, dietary preferences were growing (84% of people would switch to a supermarket that meets their dietary needs), health concerns were rising, and working from home was driving a type of snacking that resembled full meals at unexpected times.
AMP's strategy, “We’ve got the recipe for that.”, helped customers prepare for whatever their lifestyles required. It connected with Stop & Shop in many ways: the brand’s e-commerce offering makes shopping for various situations convenient; and its large product assortment does too. The strategy was intended to assure our customers that even though their meals were getting more complex, we could assist with anything.
Amanda Freitag would show them the way. She was our series talent, a celebrity chef known for helping people learn techniques to cook on their own. AMP played towards Amanda’s strengths and fun personality, particularly leaning into the fact that she is well known in the world of competitive cooking shows and could adapt easily. We set-up each episode with a hook, where she shares the recipe she’s going to make and then – with a clever reveal under a chef’s cloche – dramatically unveils a unique way to prepare it. The idea of a twist in each episode derived from the strategy of meeting people’s needs and occasions - these were recognizable meals, yet they had to be tailored to meet various challenges like allergies, food preferences, and more.
AMP concepted a video series around six distinct recipe occasions. Despite COVID production restrictions and limited time with talent, we were able to shoot all episodes and accompanying deliverables in one day using just our in-house team. A dedicated hub was built within stopandshop.com where our videos, written recipes, and shoppable ingredients all lived.
To amplify the video series, AMP also created a cross-channel media plan. We released one weekly episode for a 6-week campaign duration, using a mix of organic and paid social channels (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest), as well as online video on YouTube, and programmatic display. We further amplified by tapping into IG Influencers who re-created recipes and shared on their own channels. Once the final episode launched, we continued to promote the cooking show with a wrap-up video driving to the website hub where all shoppable recipes and full-length videos lived.
With the help of paid media support, AMP's cooking series with Amanda Freitag generated 12.7MM impressions and 137.2K site visits to Stopandshop.com. This traffic ultimately generated an astounding $1.5MM in revenue for Stop & Shop. Our videos exceeded our benchmarks for both Site Visit Rate and Purchase Rate, with the wrap-up conclusion video generating metrics 2.5x higher than our Q3 average.
Our success was also made newsworthy via multiple industry publications such as Progressive Grocer, and Perishable News.
