Heston and Delia Hamper
Issue 16 | September 2010
Agency
Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw
Creative Team
Simon Robinson, Jamie Tierney, Kate Flather, Guy Patrick, Phil Keevil
Production Team
Designer: Olu Falola; Production: Gary Bridge
Other Credits
Account team: Annette Blunden, Nick Burbidge, Margaux Wade, Deola Laniyan, Ross Cleal; Planner: David Yates
Date
March 2010
Background
In 2010, Waitrose in the UK began an integrated campaign using Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal to demonstrate the ‘shared love of food’ at the heart of the brand. Every week, Delia and Heston shared a different recipe through TV, press, direct comms and in-store.
Where better to start spreading the word about the new campaign than through the supermarket’s own online community of extremely loyal and involved food lovers called MyWaitrose. They help develop new products, blog about cooking, and have the inside track on new developments.
If the new campaign excited them, then they would help spread the word.
Idea
The approach was to tell the most vocal members of MyWaitrose about the new weekly recipes and encourage them to try the first one for themselves – then share it with the rest of the MyWaitrose community online.
They were sent a special hamper explaining Waitrose’s reasons for choosing Delia and Heston. Included were all the ingredients for the first recipe (a rhubarb and ginger brulée), the recipe itself plus a dish to make it in and an invitation to let MyWaitrose know how it turned out. What real foodie could resist?
Results
The hamper was warmly welcomed by all recipients. More importantly, 50% of them chose to feed back to the MyWaitrose community with evocative descriptions and their own tips on how to make it.
“First of all, thank you so much for the gift box of wonderful goodies, it was a lovely and unexpected surprise! The recipe was great.” – MyWaitrose member
The first week of the new campaign saw phenomenal success across the business, with Waitrose selling 14 weeks’ worth of rhubarb in four days.
Our Thoughts
The difference between direct direct and indirect direct is in the vocabulary you use. If you talk about consumers, you’re in indirect direct. If you talk about customers, because you know them by name, then you are in direct marketing. And Kitcatt Nohr are, without doubt, in the business of direct marketing.
No doubt MCBD are patting themselves on the back for some terrific results to their TV campaign but some of that success will have been down to this mailing. In identifying and talking to a small group of people with disproportionate clout, this mailing has helped turn Waitrose’s message into something people want to talk about.