Cheesy Chili Cook-Off

OBJECTIVES

1) Drive Treasure Cave® Cheese brand awareness
2) Inspire usages of all the cheese varieties: Blue, Feta, Goat, Parmesan

STRATEGY

Create the Treasure Cave® Cheesy Chili Cook Off recipe contest to engage consumers and highlight unique chili cheese recipes with different cheeses to increase usage during a peak buying season.

Consumer First® Solution

We started with our audience of Millennial Moms and their interests in following Influencers and trendy cooking shows. Next, we tapped into Food Network's Retro Rad Chef, Emily Ellyn, a sour Freshness Expert. Emily created new recipes and we produced videos of her preparing and cooking the dishes with Frigo® cheese. We would use Instagram to showcase these new recipe sand develop an incentive for our Moms to share their recipes, too

TARGET AUDIENCE

Audiences were segmented by demographics to reach Millennials and Core Shoppers using separately constructed digital and social ad campaigns.

CAMPAIGN SUMMARY

We created an exciting digital shopper engagement program that drove superior results using brand-owned and third-party marketing tools and platforms.

We kicked off the Cheesy Chili Cook-Off recipe contest during the height of the football playoff season including the Superbowl and National Chili Day in February.

Consumers were invited to cook up their best batch of cheesy chili and take a photo of it. Name their recipe and provide a short flavor description and what makes it unique. Then share their photo on Instagram with the hashtag #cheesychilicookoff for a chance to win $1,500, the Golden Ladle trophy, a year's supply of Treasure Cave cheese, and have their recipe featured on the brand's website and social media channels. Plus, ten runner-up winners could win branded chili Crockpots and free cheese.

Alternatively, chili lovers could enter their recipe on the brand’s contest microsite, TreasureCaveChiliCookOff.com, built for all devices. It featured inspirational cheesy chili recipes created by a Food Network chef, and a running photo gallery of all the competing recipes.

To get spread the word about the cook-off, our digital media strategy and advertising ran across social media channels, foodie/recipe websites and email.

RESULTS

Superior results drove brand awareness and engagement, and exceeded benchmarks:

• 3,519 consumer generated recipes submitted
• 13,100,000 Media Impressions
• 0.35% Click Thru Rate (CTR) on digital ads
• 35,000+ Social media engagements and 11,000+ link clicks
• 19% Email Open Rates