It all started when an ambitious Twitch streamer ordered an old RAGÚ recipe tin online, filled with vintage recipes that all incorporated RAGÚ, and dared to ask her fans what we wanted to say but were afraid to: who would make a carrot cake with RAGÚ? As opposed to panicking at the negative publicity or writing the streamer off as a brand detractor, we felt she came off as more of a curious potential consumer. The decision was made to engage. Plus, as foodies, there was a selfish reason at play too: we needed to know if carrot cake with RAGÚ was classically good, or merely something we ate before the advent of the internet.
So, we found the same recipe tin on eBay and bought it, worked with the streamer to find out where she lived and then partnered with a local bakery in the area to bake and deliver a one of one RAGÚ carrot cake, prepared to exact recipe specifications. In a conversation where RAGÚ was effectively being laughed at, we wanted to show as a brand we had a sense of humor – and that good recipes never go out of style.
Specifically, we wanted to showcase:
The power of active community management to help convert potential new fans
The value in listening more than talking as a brand
How to organically win with new fan communities in to drive cultural relevance
And that you can make a good vegetable-centric cake with a red sauce base
As part of our normal community management efforts on RAGÚ, we look to identify and positively engage with fans on and off our pages. When we get tagged a lot in specific videos, we make it a priority to identify ways to enter the conversation; we always want to ensure that our commentary is additive and invited.
In this case though, the conversation was a bit different. Usually, social commentary falls within a few buckets that can be planned for in advance: someone likes your product, someone has an issue with your product, or someone wants you to know, apropos of nothing, that your product sucks. What’s harder to plan for is when a Twitch streamer finds a recipe tin, believed to be from the 70s, full of antiquated recipes tied to your brand, and does a subathon playfully tweaking you.
So the first question we had to answer was, could we spin this into a positive interaction or was Luxie, the streamer, just looking to laugh at our expense and end it there? In our mind, she was more curious than anything. She bought a RAGÚ tin, so she was openminded to our brand and her tone was that of curiosity. In other words, we felt she could be converted.
The second question to answer was: how do we show up? It wouldn’t be enough – or tonally appropriate - to thank her for being a fan and express mail some sauce. The crux of her video was her surprise at how many recipes from the recipe tin could be prepared with RAGÚ, and she specifically flagged the carrot cake. So we knew we there was baking to be done. After discussing any number of executions – some of which involved flying Luxie to the RAGÚ HQ to bake the cake with our in-house chef – we decided it would be easier to just send the cake to her. It wouldn’t be enough to just make it, we needed to know from Luxie if it was good.
So after a DM to express our appreciation for her enthusiasm and desire to send her a gift as a token of our appreciation, we had Luxie’s address which allowed us to find a bakery in her neighborhood. With the same recipe tin already procured on eBay, we shared the recipe with our new friends at Oakland Bake Company and we were off.
As this wasn’t a paid engagement but rather a surprise & delight, the story could have ended there. But Luxie was so surprised and touched by our gesture she ended up recapping the entire story on TikTok again, along with posting twice on Instagram. Once we knew she was a fan, we ended up recapping the story on RAGÚ channels as well, with Luxie’s approval. And as Luxie doesn’t make a habit of creating content or curating fans around food creations gone awry, we’re pleased to report the cake tasted good.
For the cost of one recipe tin ($26.02) and one custom carrot cake ($195.18), we earned 100K impressions (two Instagram stories, one TikTok post) & added relevance with a Twitch community that is largely new to RAGÚ
Luxie’s content, and recap video posted to our feed, earned 100% positive sentiment, a 70% increase from our normal monthly performance
Our recap video collectively earned over 19K views organically and was among our top performing posts on Instagram (900% on organic average engagements) and TikTok (270% increase on organic average view total)
The success of the post inspired a recipe-tin content series, the first video of which earned 6.7K views, as one of our top viewed organic posts on the year.
In addition to the raw numbers, the effort reflects a conscious effort on the brand’s part to win with younger consumers & remind people who grew up with the brand that we’re not still the RAGÚ you had as a kid. Established and confident brands are able to meet their fans halfway and laugh at themselves so it was critical for us to find the right way to engage this conversation. Being able to successfully enter new spaces – like gaming communities from Twitch – allows us to experiment more moving forward under the expanded umbrella of what RAGÚ stands for to consumers and continue to win with new audiences.
