Our influencers were sent a Barilla pasta kit for two, with a jar of sauce, a box of pasta, and a challenge: the chance join the ‘Barilla Pasta Exchange’ and share a meal made with love with a friend. We then encouraged them to post their content online. Since our Barilla Kit recipients were selected for being very vocal and influential, we knew they would love to share their experiences online.

We then re-posted these videos on Youku (China’s YouTube), spreading the reach of our influencers further and showing more people how easy it is to try cooking pasta at home. We coupled pre-roll ads with popular dramas our audience enjoy watching while cooking. We also seeded the Barilla mini-site and viral video content in Baidu searches (China’s Google), inspiring more people to try cooking Barilla at home for their family and friends.

We set out to grow awareness for Barilla and get people to try cooking pasta at home:

- +142 million online Barilla video views

- +78% of people reached were likely to recommend Barilla to friends and family; a media value of over USD$19m.

- 100% increase in Weibo (China’s Facebook) followers.

- 564 tons of pasta sold vs 270 tons sold in previous year which was 200% growth.

Now that a pasta movement is beginning in China, our hope is to start a NEW saying, “There is an Italy in Asia, and it is called China.”