From makeup tutorials to organization hacks, social media offers inspiration in all shapes and sizes to Millennials and Gen Z today, quickly and easily from their own phone. Unsurprisingly, easy at-home recipes are one of the most searched topics for this audience, with #food bringing in over 700 billion views on TikTok and 500 million on Instagram. Trending content in this space ranges from girl dinner and the viral salmon and rice bowl, to the rise in popularity around cottage cheese. Quaker Rice Snacks were primed and ready to take advantage of this phenomenon when quick and easy rice cakes recipes started appearing all over Explore pages in late 2022, leveraging a multi-channel, surround-sound approach across earned media, Instagram and TikTok.
As a longstanding leader in the category, Quaker Rice Snacks was well-positioned to take over this social conversation in a wholly ownable way. To help do so, the brand partnered with a social trendsetter who overindexed in reaching Gen Z and Millennial audiences, had an authentic love for Quaker Rice Cakes and had a clear tie to the trend that was too perfect not to leverage.
Based on a fun insight tied to one of her most popular songs, Meghan Trainor was the perfect partner for the program: she was all about that base – which was the perfect parallel to the trend of using a Quaker Rice Cake as a base for tasty recipes. The authenticity in the partnership was rooted in a few core components: 1) she brought the ultimate nostalgic tie-in with her hit “All About That Bass,” 2) she’s a true fan of the brand, quoting in interviews how she’s been eating the product for years and 3) she enthusiastically developed her own simple recipes showing how she uses Rice Cakes as a base for a variety of toppings.
To highlight the versatility of Quaker Rice Cakes and ease of using them as a base for quick, at-home recipes, Trainor filmed content for three rounds of social posts to be shared across channels, including her Instagram and TikTok accounts, with a combined audience of over 36 million followers. She incorporated different Quaker Rice Cake flavors including Caramel, Salt Free and White Cheddar into her three unique recipes, featuring sweet and savory options like peanut butter and banana to avocado spread and pizza toppings. She shared the content over several weeks, which was amplified with paid support to further reach the brand’s target audience.
In addition to generating social chatter, the brand looked to drive additional buzz through a strategic earned media approach leveraging Meghan for interviews with key media outlets in lifestyle, entertainment and parenting verticals.
Beyond her partnership with Quaker Rice Snacks, Meghan had an exciting personal announcement of her own to share during her media interviews – she was expecting her second child! Between publishing a pregnancy book and releasing her new hit single “Mother,” Trainor was full of mom advice, and her snacking tips allowed Quaker Rice Cakes to fit seamlessly into the conversation. The timely announcement helped elevate the program’s media reach with features in top-tier outlets including PopCulture, Parade, E! Online, Newsweek, SheKnows and Foodsided.
The partnership with Meghan Trainor successfully intersected the existing rice cake conversation on social media and beyond, making serious waves to reach the target audience across several platforms, including Instagram, TikTok and earned media coverage. Meghan’s social posts alone drove 103 million social impressions across her six posts on Instagram and TikTok. Social conversation showed significant engagement with target Gen Z and Millennial audiences as well, with followers feeling inspired and sharing their own personal takes on the recipes with comments like, “Yes. I've done this concept before but with plain rice cake and almond butter. Yum!😋,” “Might have to try this with everything but the bagel seasoning. Never thought to put toppings on rice cakes,” and, “Why have I never thought to make avocado toast with a rice cake?”
In total, the campaign generated over 2.1B impressions across 203 total placements, surpassing the campaign goal by 140%. The campaign had 100% positive/neutral sentiment with 98% of coverage including 2+ key messages and image assets.
