We needed something big to stand out. Rather than feature as one of several sponsors on a TV show, we created our own bespoke cooking program, purely catered to Kraft: The Kraft Challenge. We partnered with Justfood.tv, and developed a format where four aspiring chefs were challenged to craft various types of dishes, all including Kraft cheese. The show was hosted by popular celebrity chef Hala Ayash to add credibility to Kraft’s cooking claims. The winner of the show would walk away with a private week-long course at the Cordon Bleu institute in Paris.

We streamed our episodes via Facebook live to encourage longer viewership and lend an element of real-time excitement. To entice users to tune in week after week, we placed the fate of the contestants in their hands: each episode, users voted for their ‘fan favorite’ to help them win.

We launched the challenge before Ramadan to establish Kraft’s awareness ahead of this season for the brand.

Our strategy mirrored our target audience’s media behavior and content preferences. 20-40-year-old females in KSA are the greatest volume contributors to Kraft’s business, and often seek food inspiration online. A study revealed that over a third follow celebrity chefs online, so we recruited Chef Hala Ayash to host the show. Seeing as our audience was accustomed to online video, Facebook live was the optimal touchpoint to connect with them.

We partnered with JustFood.tv to leverage both their production and their regional digital footprint; they produced the episodes, and also published them on their own widely-followed social channels.

Our aim was to build a platform with the potential for longevity, something we could revisit year after year. Kraft Challenge fulfilled the objective to reposition Kraft as an unmissable ingredient in any housewife’s arsenal.