IN DEPTH CASE STUDY
OLLIE LLOYD, CEO AT GREAT BRITISH CHEFS
here are few things more pleasurable than good food. Sitting in a cinema and watching colourful dishes being cooked up in high-definition can leave you salivating as you glance
regretfully at your popcorn and coke. A good culinary experience can even influence your choice of holiday destination. Great British Chefs wanted to bring these experiences together and combine the imaginative flavours of Michelin-starred international cuisine with the rich aesthetics of the big screen.
FUSING CULTURE AND CUISINE For two nights in April this year, they ran Silver Screen Cuisine: an experiential foodie event at Everyman’s Screen on the Green cinema in Islington, in partnership with Celebrity Cruises. The concept centred on a screening of The Hundred Foot Journey, a 2014 film from Stockholm-born director Lasse Hallström (Chocolat and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape). Starring Helen Mirren, it chronicles the journey of an Indian chef who travels to rural France and sets up a restaurant called Maison Mumbai, creating a new kind of cuisine that combines Indian and French ingredients. “The film is about the fusion of culture and cuisine,” says Ollie Lloyd, CEO at Great British Chefs. “We came up with this idea of re-inventing cinema and bringing it to life in a culinary way.” During the screening Michelin-starred
chefs Alfred Prasad and Pascal Aussignac cooked up dishes inspired by the Indian and French flavours. The chefs worked together to harmonise the styles of their respective cultures. Prasad is a celebrated Indian chef, formerly of London’s Tamarind restaurant—the first Indian restaurant in Europe to earn a Michelin star. Aussignac is a Gascony chef who cooks classic French food with a twist at London’s Club Gascon. From the Indian boudoir-style décor to
the flower-laden rickshaw embellished with Celebrity Cruises’ branding, the
event was all about transporting people to another culture. “We had a red carpet outside. At the interval—we broke the film old school style—we served seven dishes inspired by the film. Along with this we had a French jazz band and carefully crafted cocktails.” Tickets were open to consumers for
purchase, but the audience was largely made up of press and bloggers who could amplify the event beyond the reach of the brands’ ordinary marketing channels. The objective was clear: to magnify Celebrity Cruises’ involvement with Silver Screen Cuisine and to challenge perception of the cruise industry, which isn’t normally associated with outstanding food.
STIRRING UP INTEREST Partnering with Great British Chefs and Everyman Cinemas meant that, as well as their own customer base, Celebrity Cruises could target an already- established audience of foodies and build authority. “We ran an integrated marketing campaign across our
for brands today is to find a way to get into consumers' headspace
The challenge
channels, talking about what the partnership was about and what we were doing. That meant that the communication went way beyond the paid elements of the campaign,” says Lloyd. Building conversation was key. “We had a social and PR campaign run by Celebrity Cruises’ PR agency [DeVries SLAM]. We announced it on Twitter, and at the event we leveraged our network, Celebrity Cruises’ network, Everyman’s network, and had loads of bloggers
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talking about it. There was a whole buzz around #SilverScreenCuisine and at the heart of that our three brands were pumping it out to our respective audiences.” To bring the concept to life and stir up curiosity in the run-up to the event, Great British Chefs produced a 60-second trailer which ran across all three brands’ sites. Again, the content was matched to the tone of the event. With the sitar as soundtrack, the trailer moves from images of cooking in the Silver Screen Cuisine kitchen to culinary scenes from the film. Pearl & Dean ran the trailer across all the Everyman Cinemas within the M25 for four weeks. It was viewed by over 100,000 people during this period.
CONNECTING CONSUMERS Tickets for Silver Screen Cuisine sold out in days, so Celebrity Cruises were able to use the content on their site to rustle up conversation. “They were able to tell the story of the event before, during and after. They were able to run competitions and generate interest around it. Rather than selling tickets, though, this was about talking about this amazing event and saying ‘God, don’t you wish you could be at it?’” Great British Chefs ran additional
content across their site too. They had interviews with Prasad and Aussignac, recipes for some of the chefs’ signature dishes such as tandoori ananas and salad niçoise and, on social media, followers could Tweet a food-themed film title for the chance to win The Hundred Foot Journey on DVD. “For better or worse” says Lloyd,
“consumers expect more than straightforward advertising—they want brands to connect with them. The challenge for brands today is to find a way to get into consumers’ headspace, sit alongside the influencers and be part of the conversation.”
greatbritishchefs.com
FEATURE BY ESTELLE HAKNER
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