Unilever Food Solutions (UFS) is a professional condiment brand serving restaurant owners and chefs.

In 2021, however, the business faced two key challenges.

Firstly, restaurants were some of the hardest hit by COVID-19. While China managed the pandemic better than most, there were nonetheless lingering effects felt by the industry. Despite the broader economic recovery from COVID-19, consumer spending on meals was still down -17% at the end of 2020 (China Bureau of Statistics).

Secondly, young diners – who make up 65% of restaurant consumption in China – had tastes that were changing faster than ever before.

Since 2017, UFS has been helping restaurants adapt to changing tastes through their ‘Killer Recipe’ campaign. This campaign inspired restaurant operators with on-trend recipe ideas while promoting UFS' product superiority.

Across the business, our target was to increase sales, as well as increase product penetration by +45%.

As restaurants recovered from the lingering effects of COVID-19, Unilever Food Solutions needed to be more than a B2B supplier, it needed to be a supporter for their customers.

Talking to business owners, UFS was keenly aware that traditional restaurant owners – mostly single owner-operators – were struggling to keep up with Gen Z tastes. They were constantly looking to modernize their menus but often the everyday burdens of running their business made this a struggle.

UFS saw an opportunity to get creative and help.

Tapping into the insight that food was being used as a post-lockdown entertainment remedy by Gen Z, who had taken to giving dishes nicknames that connected the dishes to their effects, UFS sought to help restaurants by building a set of recipes that would bring this key audience back into restaurants. In doing so, UFS strengthened the association between quality food and UFS’ products.

To transform recipe inspiration into business impact, we linked our B2B campaign with a B2C element.There were two key pillars:

B2C: Build an appetite for our Killer Recipes among young Chinese diners to drive footfall to participating restaurants.

To find the recipes that would attract young Chinese diners, we collected and analysed big data from Weibo and Dianping for inspiration.

Then, working with four external expert chefs, as well as more than 70 brand consultants and gourmet KOLs, we developed creative dish concepts based on UFS ingredients. These concepts were then tested by 600 high-value young diners who voted on the final recipes.

B2B: Convert chefs into customers through recipe inspiration, amplifying diner experience and transforming data into a frontline sales tool.

Running concurrently, this strategy built a holistic marketing ecosystem for Unilever Food Solutions to concurrently help promote its products while supporting its customers.

The campaign had two key parts:

First, we unveiled the Killer Recipes at four top restaurants, attended by 60 KOLs who shared the experience on Douyin and Weibo, while we also created a short branded film to drive social buzz.

Then we promoted the dishes on Dianping, WeChat and Douyin, targeting ‘young foodie’ audiences. On China’s top lifestyle app, Dianping, users could download dish coupons that they could redeem directly at participating restaurants, linking content directly to footfall.

Secondly, we targeted our B2B audience, incentivizing chefs and owners to download the Killer Recipes to include on their own menus. To do this effectively, UFS worked with Tencent to create a specific chef target audience based off look-a-like-modeling from UFS' official WeChat account.

Once they downloaded the recipes, we shared their contact information and recipe interest with our sales team. Integrating into Tencent Maps, a face-to-face conversation transformed leads into customers.

The Killer Recipes delivered scorching hot results for Unilever Food Solutions across its B2B and B2C objectives:

B2B:

(See confidential results)

This led to a 460% increase in UFS’s sales, outpacing market growth 6.8x!

Market penetration improved 118% vs our target of +45%.

B2C:

The ‘Killer Recipe’ topic on Weibo was viewed 200 million times within 10 days of launch (+193% YOY) and the brand video was viewed 19 million times.

More than 255,000 consumers downloaded coupons on Dianping within 6 days (+88% above forecast).

Thanks to our innovative B2C2B approach, Unilever Food Solutions is now in a strong position to lead the restaurant industry’s recovery in 2021.