Philadelphia, nicknamed Philly, is a popular cream cheese and well-known in the region. The only problem? It’s not well-consumed.

Philly had been losing share since Q2 2022 with penetration decline. Actually, the whole segment was struggling; even though the cheese category was growing in value by 7% in KSA, tubs hold the lowest share, with only 5% penetration.

Why did people like Philly but leave it to languish on store shelves? Consumers felt that it falls short on key purchase drivers. Consumers love the fresh, creamy taste of Philly but consider it expensive: 28% identified price as the main barrier to purchase. Philly also under-indexed (80%) on versatility, which represented a huge opportunity, given that its delicious taste pairs well with everything. Our objective was clear: to convert awareness to trial.

To do this, we aimed to uplift the pleasure of eating Philly through content inspired by AI.

ChatGPT launched in October 2022, and consumers were finding ways to get Artificial Intelligence to help them work smarter, study harder... Who’s to say it couldn’t help them eat better?

Enter Philly AI Kitchen: a webseries showdown where two chefs compete, one with nothing but their own skill, and the other with generative AI on their side.

We needed a cast of creative foodies with the power to change minds and have our consumers looking at Philly in a whole new way. We needed influencers.

In each episode, two influencer chefs open a box of ingredients – including Philly naturally. One relied on their own experience, while the other simply followed instructions to a recipe generated by the ChatGPT. Three judges (also Saudi foodie influencers) then performed a blind taste test and vote on the best dish.

In the Philly AI kitchen, what reigns supreme? Human expertise or artificial intelligence

Looking at our consumers, we found that they’re passionate about food: dining and cooking are top interests among 20- to 44-year-old females in KSA. They also have a huge appetite for social media, with over 40% being ‘heavy users’ of TikTok and Instagram. From an attitudinal perspective, our digitally up-to-date target audience is looking for convenience, seeking new ways to simplify their to-do list.

We decided to run a purely digital activation that amplifies Philadelphia’s fresh & creamy taste, by enhancing the awareness and versatility of Philadelphia through Influencer recipe content.

We cooked up the concept of Philly AI Kitchen, a cooking-show web-series with a digital twist: it was powered by artificial intelligence. Instead of two human chefs, it was man vs. machine... the machine in this case being a generative AI app that produces recipe suggestions.

So long ChatGPT, it was time for ChefGPT.

For starters: the chefs. Our influencer outreach team selected faces familiar to our social-savvy audience, and we recruited the likes of Misho Baeshen (4.8 million followers) and Reem Alahmed (270K followers). The influencers were known within the Kingdom’s food industry, driving credibility for our cooking show.

For seconds: our star ingredient. For all four episodes: two chefs were presented with a mystery box of ingredients – including Philly cream cheese. One chef used his own skill to propose a recipe, while the other entered the prompt into ChatGPT, then followed the recipe generated by the AI.

Each episode centred on a different meal - breakfast, lunch, snack and dessert – with a mix of sweet and savoury to drive home the element of Philadelphia’s versatility. The webisodes, filmed for YouTube, were re-edited for vertical full-screen platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, directing social users to the full webisode on YouTube.

Philly AI Kitchen was a fresh idea within a content environment that had become stale with the use – and overuse – of recipe content. But even ChatGPT couldn’t have predicted the amazing results it received.

The campaign slashed our CPMs thanks to a mix of great content and intelligent targetting. We earned a staggering 115 million impressions, and over 9 million in reach. The real cherry on top though was Philly’s sales data: our beloved cream cheese jumped by 0.7% in market share versus the same period last year.

Even though the influencer chefs cooked up a storm on set, it was the cool concept of Philly AI Kitchen that was the real chef d’oeuvre.