What was the campaign, in a nutshell?

Last month, we launched ‘Soilmates’ for Oddbox – the world’s first dating service for lonely vegetables that also helps fight food waste. We created an app to allow users to enter the veg they had left over in their fridge, set its dating ‘preferences’, swipe through the suggested recipes and then choose a match – allowing the user to download the recipes and cook, thereby reducing food waste at home.

How did the idea come into being?

Oddbox briefed us to raise awareness of the huge problem of food waste in the UK, in a way that would get cut through with the media but also drive traffic back to the Oddbox website. The activity had to take place in Q1, and we knew that January was a crowded space, with lots of brands, influencers and media telling people what they should be doing differently (‘New year, new me’ etc.). We knew that we needed a different approach with a different tone to really encourage behavioural change.Knowing that sex sells, we dived into dating and adopted all the tropes of that sector, behaving out of category for a direct-to-consumer fruit and veg brand, taking inspiration from the dating and sex industries.

What ideas were rejected?

None.

Briefly describe the campaign planning and process?

We developed insight for the campaign by undertaking bespoke research revealing the average person in the UK throws away 10 per cent of the fruit and vegetables from their weekly food shop and identified which vegetables were the most unusedWe launched phase one of the campaign with these new stats, illustrating the 10 least-used vegetables into dating profile pages, basing them on common and humorous dating tropes like ‘love bomber’, ‘vain gym bro’, and ‘soft boi’. We then hosted these on a web-based dating app we created called ‘Soilmates’, giving consumers a CTA and media an intriguing digital tool to drive engagement – with all traffic driving back to the Oddbox website.We released this to media and amplified via various influencers, including Lagom Chef (Martin Odell), to demonstrate how easy it is to use up unwanted veg.

For phase two, we activated a guerilla marketing campaign, identifying which unlucky vegetables are still searching for their perfect ‘Soilmate’ and placing suggestive, attention-grabbing posters and stickers seemingly featuring inclusive sexual proclivities, inspired by kink, group, BDSM and other alternative practices. Suddenly food waste was really sexy.

What were the biggest challenges, and how did you overcome them?

We only had just over a month to turn the campaign around, which was a stretch given we had a website to build. Luckily we had great partners and a brave client who could work with us to push the work through.Our subject matter was also a little riskier than Oddbox’s audience was used to, particularly for phase two. We had to make sure the tone would grab attention, be a bit spicy, but not be offensive.

How did you measure the results, and what were they?

The results for phase two are still coming in but to date we have achieved: 641k brand reach in launch week – that’s +472 per cent compared to the previous week; 6,158 microsite visits so far, including an average time on page of 02:52 minutes; 38,613 recipe page views on the Oddbox site in launch week; an increase in positive sentiment from 72 per cent to 79 per cent in February compared to the previous month; and more than 50 pieces of coverage across national, online and print media

What’s the biggest lesson you took away from the campaign?

Brand-owners want to be taken out of their comfort zone, with managed risk that can deliver on their business objectives without losing the creativity. And don’t hang around in public toilets too long or it gets a bit spicy.