Opportunity : To leverage a revised brand platform towards differentiation within the established, crowded pasta sauce category.
Method : Crafting unique messaging and an integrated content-driven campaign for the new offerings that drove trial and ongoing brand engagement for consumers and customers (retailers).
Not all lines-of-business within a CBG brand can share the same narrative. Each line needs to relate to particular consumer use-case and must be differentiated from the competition. The more competitive the category, the more it is necessary to craft memorable stories that differentiate and give consumers the reasons to reach for the jar on the shelf.
Pasta-sauce brands each work to communicate unique positioning they hope will connect with, and influence consumers. The positioning mix typically consists of : celebrity-chef endorsed, philanthropic, clean-label/health, heritage Italian, gourmet, and value.
Applying the new brand platform, we developed the “The Story of Sauce” campaign, a story of adventure and discovery as told through the story of each of the pasta sauces and their unique story of origin.
Content featured recipes, but also focused on the uniqueness of the product line, the relationships with the farmers, the rustic characteristics of the region where the San Marzano tomatoes are grown, the simplicity of the formulations, and crafted flavors inspired by the stories of their origins.
A sweeps for an eleven day trip to the San Marzano region in Italy (meet the farmers, tour the farms and cooking lessons) helped drive engagement, supported the overall campaign thematic.
Campaign narrative:
The Story of Sauce :
At Mezzetta we search the world to find the best ingredients for every product we sell. When it comes to our Marinara, we know that the best tomatoes are grown in the sun-drenched soils of the San Marzano region of Italy – so that is where we source every single tomato for our ultra-premium Marinaras. This fall, Mezzetta is celebrating our food sourcing adventures: We’ll tell you the stories of our sauces – how we source ingredients from California to Europe, and how we create the sauces (hint: incredible ingredients from truffles to chilies!), and all the ways anyone can relive the joy of the adventure we felt as we discovered through our travels and exploration. Bringing these experiences through their flavors, to your kitchen.
What – Product/formulation positioning : simple, pure, highest-quality ingredients featuring one type of tomato from the San Marzano region of Italy, hand-made, small batch production techniques.
How – 13 weeks of engaging the consumer through a network of influencers, regional Italian recipe inspiration, a chance to win a trip to the San Marzano Italy for 11 days (to meet the farmers, tour the farms and take a cooking course featuring regional Italian pasta). Social, web, In-store, CRM – 66 million impressions.
Who – The target : we reach out to those whose curiosity drives them to continually seek and discover eating experiences beyond the ordinary. They are driven by: variety, convenience, real-ness.
Why – The brand purpose : The need to share experiences of eating joy with the world. The memories of those key-stone meals that make the kind of impressions that inspires that need to share.
Results
– Linqia influencers drove 149M impressions and created over 16,000 pieces of original content including blog stories recipes, photos, videos, and social posts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest.
– Influencers have filled Mezzetta’s Pinterest boards with nearly 5,000 original recipes and photos.
– The program’s top-performing recipe video has been viewed 200,000 times and shared 4,000 times on Facebook, outperforming videos from a contracted video-only influencer agency by 4x. Source Linqia
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