Summary
Agency: Clarion Communications
The Challenge
Aunt Bessie’s asked us to drive consumption of Aunt Bessie’s Yorkshire Pudding with chicken.
The Solution
Our strategy was to shake up the traditional convention of serving Yorkshire pudding with beef by sparking a carefully controlled debate around serving it with chicken instead.
We created a two-pronged campaign. By mining Aunt Bessie’s, Kantar and Mintel research we recognised a natural news story in the fact that more Yorkshire Puddings are eaten with roast chicken than roast beef across Britain today. We seeded this story as an exclusive to The Grocer – given its influence with the national press. Then, once appeared, we encouraged the national media to put a consumer slant on it – highlighting a change in British traditions as we move away from pairing Yorkshires solely with beef.
This set the scene for our creative execution. We approached the Oxford Union – the world’s oldest and most prestigious debating society – and asked them to debate the notion ‘This house believes the Yorkshire pudding should be served with roast chicken’. We generated vast amounts of coverage and debate across national media, supported by a social media campaign on Aunt Bessie’s social media channels to further fuel the conversation.
The Results
The campaign was a huge success, generating over 32 pieces of coverage in key media, with a reach of over 42 million, including the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, Sun and Huffington Post. Good Morning Britain dedicated a segment on the story, with viewers taking to social media to tell Susanna Reid how they enjoy their Yorkshire Pudding, and it was similarly debated on The Wright Stuff, Talk Sport and Radio 2.
The campaign generated a sales increase of 3.2% on Aunt Bessie’s core sku during the main week of the activity.
