The Campaign

Dolmio are the market leader in the Italian food sector and can be found in over 2 million household across Australia. Recently however, the Italian Food category has been in decline due to more exciting food categories such as Mexican. Dolmio needed to become relevant again. So they commissioned a research study revealing technology had hijacked family dinnertime. As a brand that believes dinnertime should bring families together Dolmio wanted to do something about this. So to highlight the problem and get people reassessing their use of technology during dinnertime, we conducted a social experiment with some real families and a new invention. The Dolmio® Pepper Hacker. The Dolmio Pepper Hacker looks like a normal pepper cracker but has a secret, unique feature. One twist not only cracks pepper but also temporarily powers off TVs, shuts down Wi-Fi and disables mobile devices, providing families with some quality tech-free dinner time together. We gave Pepper Hackers to frustrated mums who helped us hide cameras in their homes to capture the experiment as it unfolded. We shared our online film exclusively with one of Australia’s highest reaching news shows – The Project, supported with our research study. A mainstream consumer, technology and industry PR campaign then rolled out. The film went viral driving further conversations about the issue and views of the film.

The Brief

As a brand that believes dinnertime should bring families together, Dolmio wanted to raise awareness about a major problem facing modern families today – technology has hijacked family dinnertime - and get people to reassess their use of technology during family dinnertime. Research conducted by Dolmio confirmed the relevance of our insight and grounded our story in current Australian consumer data. KPI’s set were 500,000 views of the film.

Results

The campaign well exceeded the KPI’s set for online views of the film by a staggering 16,394% (KPI set at 500,000 views). In just 4 weeks we achieved: - Over 3 billion earned media impressions - Over 82 million views of the online film across YouTube and Facebook - $27.2 million in earned media Social media commentary showed our audience was inspired to ditch the tech and reconnect at dinnertime. Tens of thousands of comments, tweets praised the campaign and family-centric messaging and the film achieved over 1.25 million shares on Facebook alone. Dolmio was being talked about in a significant way and was in the minds of families all over the world. We featured on The Project, The Today Show, The UK and Australian Daily Mail, The UK Telegraph and over 70 other publications.

Execution

We initiated a soft launch using Trueview pre-rolls to capture views on YouTube first. We then implemented our seeding plan contacting selected media with a preview of our online content to secure exclusive coverage. Our hard launch then targeted all key consumer media, amplified through trade, lifestyle and tech publications. Whilst our focus was YouTube the natural conversation and interest shown by consumers all over the world led to sharing of our content on Facebook organically and drove significant reach.

The Situation

Dolmio commissioned research in to Australia’s dependence on technology and the results were alarming. Technology has hijacked the family meal time. The average Australian household owns approximately 12 devices/gadgets. Sixty-nine per cent of Aussie households have witnessed an argument over tech at the table and respondents cited TVs and smartphones/tablets as the top sources of distraction at the dinner table (55 per cent and 42 per cent respectively). Over half of Aussie Dads (53 per cent) reported that their kids have sometimes decided they would rather stay on their computer or phone than have dinner.

The Strategy

As a mainstream Italian pasta brand, Dolmio is in over 2 million Australian homes and largely bought by main grocery buyers, mum. And whilst pasta sauce might be on their shopping list, Dolmio was not top of mind. We needed a campaign to get Dolmio talked about amongst Australian mums and their families. By using real mums (and families) in our social experiment and by targeting mass reaching consumer media with our story our online film became a topic of dinnertime conversation around Australia and the world.