ABOUT

Business Challenge
Treasure Cave Crumbled Cheese is the number one brand of crumbled cheese. However, the brand's peak selling periods are during the summer salad season and the Holiday entertaining season. The challenge was to drive sales during the off-peak winter season in Q1, 2021.

Campaign Objectives
1) Drive Treasure Cave Cheese brand awareness and sales
2) Inspire product usage during the height of the football playoff season.

Targets/Metrics/Goals
1) Get as many eyeballs of the target consumer on the Treasure Cave brand (Total Impressions)
2) Engage the audience with the brand to create consumer generated content (Total Uploads)
3) Increase sales over same period from last year (Sales Volume)

Research
1) We researched the type of recipes used with crumble cheese during the months of January, February and March.
2) Further we looked at the types of activities our target audience engaged in during the first quarter of the year.

Insights
1) We discovered that dips and chili were the top two uses of crumbled cheese during this period.
2) Our audience continued to cook indoors and entertain friends and family during sporting events (especially the Super Bowl).
3) National Chili Day was on February 24, 2021.
4) Instagram was their go-to social media channel.

Concept / Big Idea
To drive brand awareness and inspire new ways to use Treasure Cave Crumbled Cheese, we kicked off an exciting Instagram chili recipe contest during the height of football playoffs with the “Treasure Cave CHEESY CHILI COOK-OFF”. But this was no spectator sport. We tapped into the competitive nature of home cooks and invited them from their Instagram account to
submit their cheesiest chili recipes using Treasure Cave Crumbled Cheese. Each submission was a chance to be our “Cheesy Chili Champion” or one of 10 runners up! All with exciting prizes:
Grand Prize - Golden Ladle Trophy, Recipe featured on brand's website, $1,500 Cash and free cheese for a year
Runners Up - Treasure Cave branded Crock Pot and free cheese

We built strong excitement beginning with NFL football playoff parties in January, and culminating with the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl in early February. Then we kept the momentum going into National Chili Day and throughout the remaining winter season.

Activation / Tactics
Consumers entered the CHEESY CHILI COOK-OFF through:
1) Primarily Instagram using our custom hashtag (#CheesyChiliCookOff)
2) but also through a dedicated website (WinningCheesyChiliCookOff dotcom)
The campaign was supported with:
-- Inspirational content and suggested cheesy chili recipes advertised across the top social media channels
-- Easy steps to enter on Instagram
-- Digital banner ads on targeted websites in the brand's top markets
-- Email campaign including coupons to incentivize trial
-- Web-based contest platform featuring Photo Gallery of uploaded recipes

Results
Wow! Sales volume increased 16% over the previous period
Yum! Over 3,500 chili recipes were created and photos uploaded by consumers
And...
-- Over 7.5 million impressions on banner ads
-- 5.6 million impressions on paid social
-- Outperformed email benchmarks

The “Treasure Cave CHEESY CHILI COOK-OFF” was an incredible sales success and it inspired thousands of new cheesy chili recipes from across the country. All it took was a little friendly (and delicious) competition!