People are cooking more at home, especially in quarantine, but throw away on average 30% of their food. It’s no wonder why, when online recipes only call for “half” ingredients — like half an avocado. Ziploc®, a brand superior in preserving freshness of food, wanted to not just help store leftovers, but use them.

Partnering with AllRecipes.com, we created “Leftover Recipes”, a smart media display ad that serves up recipes to finish the other half of leftover ingredients. When a recipe online calls for half ingredients, our smart ads scan the entire recipe database to find another recipe that uses the half ingredients you’d be left with. You’re then served a banner ad that shares it and encourages you to keep food fresh by storing it in Ziploc® bags.

People clicked on our banners 8xs more than the industry average, resulting in a 6.5% lift in unaided awareness of Ziploc®.

At a time when consumers are cooking more at home, especially in quarantine, the facts remained that Americans throw away on average 30% of their food. So, Ziploc® stepped in and helped people not just store their leftovers to be thrown away later, but actually use them.

Ziploc® located the most popular website for cooking inspiration — AllRecipes.com and created “Leftover Recipes”, a smart media display ad that matches the half-ingredients you’re left with from cooking their recipes with another recipe that uses the other half. If your taco dip calls for half a tomato, when you click the recipe, our ads scans the database to find another one that would use the other tomato half. The ad would then invite you to keep the tomato fresh in Ziploc® bags which you can buy directly from the banner, helping to reduce food waste.

In 2020 under quarantine, massive increases in search traffic for cooking-related terms shed light on how folks were bringing fresh food home and cooking at unprecedented rates. But in spite of this, most households were still wasting on average 30% of their food. Ziploc® had a 50 year long legacy of helping people keep their food fresh. So as we witnessed consumers struggle under the collective weight of COVID-19 and its impact on our schedules and responsibilities, we knew that the kitchen was a place where we could help. So we asked a simple question: How might Ziploc® make it easier to use up and enjoy every ingredient?

Ziploc®, a brand that is superior in preserving freshness of food, wanted to help not just store leftovers, but use them. We located the most popular website for cooking inspiration — AllRecipes.com and realized when done with these recipes, chefs are often left with half ingredients that go to waste.

So, Ziploc® created “Leftover Recipes”, a smart media display ad that matches the most popular half-ingredients you’re left with from cooking, with another recipe that uses the other half. If your taco dip calls for half a tomato, when you click the recipe, our ads scans the database to find popular recipes that would use the other tomato half. The ad would then invite you to keep the tomato fresh in Ziploc® bags which you can buy directly from the banner, helping to reduce food waste right from the start of the cooking process for consumers.

People ate the Ziploc® “Leftover Recipe’” banners up, clicking on them 8 times more than the industry average which resulted in a 6.5% lift in unaided awareness of Ziploc®. It’s no wonder our campaign generated more consumer purchases than any other Ziploc® digital tactic. By connecting consumers to delicious, food-waste preventing recipes, we saved an untold amount of food from ending up in your kitchen’s trash.