THE CHALLENGE

Oddbox briefed us to raise awareness of the huge problem of food waste in the UK, in a way that would get cut through with the media, but also drive traffic back to their website.

The activity had to take place in Q1, and we knew that January was a crowded space, with lots of brands / influencers / media telling people what they should be doing differently (New Year, New Me etc.).  We knew that we needed a different approach with a different tone to really encourage behavioural change.

Knowing that Valentine’s Day was coming up, and that we needed to join a wider cultural conversation, we began by looking into the world of dating to provide creative inspiration…

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THE SOLUTION

Tapping into dating culture, we created the world’s first dating service for lonely vegetables, allowing users to visit a web or mobile based website to set up a profile for their lonely veg, and find them a ‘Soilmate’.  

With research revealing the average person in the UK throws away 10% of the fruit and vegetables from their weekly food shop, ‘Soilmates’ allowed people to enter select vegetables sitting in their fridge drawers producing tasty, low-waste recipe suggestions which put them to good use. Like Tinder for vegetables, without the hassle of going on a date.

The digital tool led people to a recipe suggestion that would empower them to use up their leftover vegetables and create something amazing.

To help spread the word, we worked with various influencers such as food-waste disruptor Martyn Odell, otherwise known as Lagom Chef to demonstrate how easy it is to use up unwanted vegetables, as featured in Country and Townhouse.

Launched with brand new stats into the scale of the UK’s problem with food waste, ‘Soilmates’ also lovingly illustrated 10 veg profiles, basing them on common dating tropes such as the ‘love bomber’ - giving media an intriguing digital tool to drive engagement - and traffic back to the Oddbox website.

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THE RESULTS

The campaign gained almost 50 pieces of coverage, which included national coverage from the likes of Mail Online, The Mirror, The Sun and The Express, in addition to multiple pieces in lifestyle publications such as Joe.co.uk. It was also picked up in a number of creative publications such as It's Nice That and PR Week.

Other figures include:

• 641K brand reach achieved in launch week, thats +472% compared to the previous week
• 11.2K microsite visits so far, including an average time on page of 02:52
• 38,613 recipe page views on the Oddbox site in launch week
• Positive sentiment increased by 72% to 79% in February compared to the previous month.
• Overall 27.6% increase in Oddbox website traffic compared to previous year, with direct traffic up by 0.9% and organic traffic up 106%.