Ideas We Love Issue no.3

The Bouillon Bag by Knorr

Hello Again. 

We hope the return to work hasn’t been too stressful. January can be a grim time. Especially if you’re denying yourself things which normally make you happy. We have sworn ourselves off Pizza until at least February. 

But, never fear. Here is another installment of Ideas We Love. This week, the focus is a recent piece of work from Unilever brand Knorr. 

We first met each other when we worked together in PHD’s now sadly defunct Unilever Global Strategy Unit. We both worked on Unilever’s global Food brands, the largest of which is Knorr. 

It’s a really interesting brand. And the more time you spend with it, the more interesting it gets. Firstly, its product portfolio is different in each of the countries it operates in. In the UK, we know it primarily for stock cubes. But elsewhere, it sells a wide variety of different products - from stock pots, to salad and rice dishes, to seasonings and soups. 

Some of the statistics around the brand are incredible. The number of stock cubes sold by the brand across the globe each day can be counted in billions. On the rare occasions Unilever undertakes a brand refresh for Knorr, it’ll take something like two years from the new logo appearing on the first SKU to it appearing on the last, such is the breadth and depth of their product mix.

Whilst it might be easy to dismiss Stock Cubes and Seasonings as ‘low interest’, they are anything but.  These are central ingredients in cooking across the world. The cultural differences in their use and consumption means Knorr is a brand at the heart of food culture globally. And to some extent Food culture is culture. 

It’s fair to say then that Knorr is a brand close to both of our hearts and we were particularly interested in the campaign they launched just a short time before the Christmas break. 

The Bouillon Bag by Knorr   

Aside from the video to introduce the concept, the idea was extended into the influencer space with partnerships with style and fashion content being created for TikTok. The brand produced 40 copies of the bag which have been given away as part of a series of events (according to More About Advertising)

Here are some of the ingredients of this idea which we really liked

#1 Responds to a cultural trend & exaggerates it

The creative idea takes as its inspiration a fashion trend: the mini bag. It then goes one step further and imagines a bag so small that it could only house one thing: a stock cube. The interplay of high fashion and food is attention grabbing, especially as the foodstuff in question is a cupboard staple.

This attention is then enhanced by the exaggeration of the trend into something even more extreme. Perhaps this also represents a useful reminder to brands wishing to ‘engage in culture’. Don’t just jump on a cultural trend, try to convey something new. Don’t just mirror, move it on. And if you can’t say something new, then it might not be a trend worth engaging with .

#2 Repositions the brand in the world of luxury 

Most mass-market food brands like Knorr struggle with perceptions of quality, especially amongst affluent or ‘skilled’ home cooks. Cooks who are ultimately quite influential within their homes and with other food buyers. 

Taking its cues from the world of luxury goods - products known for their high quality craftsmanship - this campaign implicitly seeks to employ the body language of brands famous for their quality and craftsmanship and attempts to drive those associations for Knorr. 

Matt did a lot of work with another Unilever brand that employed this style of approach to great effect. Magnum has a history of aligning to luxury through a long line of activations at the Cannes Film Festival and series of collaborations with A-List models and designers. They even created their own ‘Pleasure’ store experience where you can buy and accessorize your ice cream. 

In concert, these activities have successfully positioned Magnum not as a ‘posh choc-ice’ but an indulgent treat, seeking to create a similar psychological pay-off to that of a luxury handbag purchase. 

#3 Elevates the product ahead of a key sales period

The hero here is the product: the stock cube. This idea landed just in time for a key sales period for Knorr - Christmas. A time when stock is used heavily in a wide range of festive dishes. It’s a smart move to seek to elevate the product to the level of the other, more sought after gifts people may have asked for from Father Chrismas. 

It’s also a useful reminder that ‘brand’ advertising doesn’t mean ‘no product’. Similarly, thinking about how you can align to moments where penetration opportunity exists will help drive payback. All of the work done by Binet and Field show that ‘brand’ advertising, when done well is actually long-lasting in it’s impact rather than ‘slow to payback’. Unilever could have favoured a more conventional message (set in a kitchen, liberal use of steam etc) to promote their range at this time of year, but took a more interesting route instead.

What are some of the dishes we would loved to have served up to accompany this idea? 

Fashion and Food are two categories which are loaded with their own codes and conventions. As a result, the marriage of the two spaces offers an incredibly fertile area to explore for new ideas and extensions. 

#1 Reframing the Retail Experience

Second-siting is a tried and trusted play by many FMCG brands in Supermarkets: Don’t just get listings with your primary competitors, get listed with complimentary products or ingredients to drive sale and steal share of basket which you may not have otherwise won. 

This style of activation can take this approach beyond the Supermarket and into spaces that can supercharge the cultural potential of the brand too. Therefore seek to get shelf space, or create a vibrant “House of K” concession within the luggage section of luxury department stores.

Just like the YETI (our featured brand last week) who actively seek to be merchandised at shops like Selfridges next to the high end coffee equipment, rather than the camping or outdoor section. 

Similarly, there is an opportunity to reverse engineer this concession style approach and place it within the typical retail spaces in supermarkets. By creating packaging which mimics the advertising idea - limited runs of miniature ‘handbag’ style boxes - positioning Knorr as the creme de la creme when it comes stock cubes and creating some prominence within the aisle vs the competition in the process.

#2 Out of stock: borrowing more from Luxury Fashion

Akin to the key visual, an obvious extension is into a series of Fashion orientated advertising assets, deployed in the style of a modern-luxury fashion brand: Premium positions with glossy monthly titles. Thinking about positioning ads on the inside front and outside back covers, or even going one step further with Gatefolds & Tip Ons. 

Statement OOH, DOOH & Murals to place the bags - and the cubes - on the most luxurious, premium canvasses you can find. 

A series of catwalk shows in major cities could add an experiential dimension, mimicking the way fashion brands launch new products to market. Taken into the content space, unboxing videos with fashion influencers on YouTube that may usually be trying on Jordan 1s who this time try to unpack the puzzle of the one cube handbag can add further scale.

FMCG normally focusses on weekly reach. These ideas do not. They are perhaps the sort of thing a stock cube brand might normally not have the confidence to try. But, brands like Oatly have shown the value in turning received wisdom on its head. This sort of Challenger behaviour, has the potential to create serious impact, especially when audiences aren’t expecting it or accustomed to it.

(Ed: The press release accompanying the campaign launch suggests there were some red carpet events at launch… we’ve been unable to find these online - so if anyone could share we would be very grateful!)

#3 Creative Collaborations → Seasonal Collections

Why stop at one item? Why not create a whole collection that the brand can drop each new season, to create cut-through and salience in moments where people’s tastes and food habits are taking a spring/summery or an autumn/wintery turn. 

This season might be about minimalism and a set of ‘mini’ luxury accessories. Next season might be about maximalism to represent the huge flavour that’s packed into every packet with a more abstract take on what’s trending.

To bridge the gap from fashion, to food and the finer side of dining, why not work with a leading chef in each of the key markets  to host an exclusive fine dining experience inspired by the collection - with associated menus, meal-plans and recipes to re-create at home? 

Could you work with a retailer like Selfridges, or global retail media-brand like the YNP group (home of Net-a-Porter, Mr Porter and The Outnet) as a one stop shop to create and manage a ‘full funnel’ activation? The more you can break this idea out and place it into new spaces - be that retail environments or pop-up restaurants - the more visibility you can build for the brand in places which consumers are searching, scrolling and streaming.

Local nuance is vital for a brand like Knorr. Collaborations are a vital tool for a brand like Knorr: clever selection and orchestration of partners and collaborators allow for local flavour when delivering big global platforms. 

#4 One Size Doesn’t Fit All

The ability to play with size and scale feels like an interesting angle to explore here. What other things could you make small? Or, perhaps, bigger? The smallest print ads. The biggest. Huge shop windows filled with a tiny little bag… the list is nearly endless. 

Size and proportion play such an important role within fashion and represents a really interesting lever that media planning can pull that we’d love to see how size of media could be used. 

If you liked this, you’ll love this….. 

As we’ve said - given the richness of the conventions within both the world of food and fashion, there are lots of great examples of brands who have done work which operates in a similar space. Here are some of our favourites. 

Lupin Season 3 Launch by Netflix 

Luxury meets larceny in this series of posters to promote the return of Lupin to Netflix last year.

London Fashion Week by Buscopan 

Digestive health brand Buscopan chose London Fashion Week in 2023 as the moment to turn category norms on their head with this set of ads placed in key fashion titles and environments. A lovely piece of work from our colleagues in team Sanofi at PHD.

Jaquemus’ Generative AI ‘Giant Handbags’

French luxury brand Jaquemus was quick out of the blocks with generative AI to trick folks into thinking a fleet of giant Handbags were racing through the streets of Paris. The yin to Knorr’s Yang.

Dior x Otani Workshop 

A partnership between Dior and Japanese Ceramicist Otani Workshop. Like the Knorr example, the use of scale - both big and small - to create drama for the launch of the new capsule collection works to great effect.

Honorable mentions for Ikea Christmas Meatball andMcDonalds new saver menu work - both of which are worth mentioning for their use of scale that is very much in keeping with how Knorr have approached this campaign.

Let us knorr what you think?!

What do you think? We’d love to hear from you - either with your thoughts on the case study, our analysis and ideas, or just the newsletter in general

Until next time

Cheerio

Tom and Matt