Why is this work relevant for PR?

The 'Tonight, I'll be eating...' campaign is built on creating a ‘cultural high five’ between celebrities that makes waves through culture, generating enormous additional engagement and reach through earned. This year’s campaign was one of the best examples of this. By taking iconic Australian kids band, The Wiggles, and creating a ‘new’ member - The Grey Wiggle - who is the antithesis of everything they stand for, the campaign hacked culture to captivate and delight a nation in the throes of covid lockdown - adding an additional 40.3 million in earned reach to the campaign.

Background

By 2020, the Online Food Delivery category was maturing and growth slowing. As market leader, Uber Eats needed to find new sources of growth beyond its existing heartland audience of urban young professionals, where penetration had almost peaked. Suburban families not only represented the last opportunity for growth, but are higher value customers with larger average ‘basket sizes.’ The problem was, families didn’t think it was a ‘brand for them,’ in part due to the deliberate way the brand’s ‘Tonight, I’ll be Eating’ creative platform had been developed to appeal to a younger audience, who have a very different relationship with the category. This gave us a clear brief for 2021 brand marketing - Evolve our ‘Tonight, I’ll be eating…’ brand campaign to appeal to families (whilst not alienating our heartland audience). Objectives - - Build brand affinity with families. - $0.50 increase in average 'basket value' from family orders.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Building on the 'Tonight, I'll be eating..' campaign, we created a new member of iconic Australian kids band, The Wiggles, who every parent has a love-hate relationship with, having endured years of their annoyingly over-the-top enthusiasm and nursery rhymes on repeat. Tapping into this parental tension, our new Wiggle was the antithesis of their colourful optimism. In fact, he was decidedly Grey and grumpy - played by one of the World's biggest snarks, Simon Cowell. Across an integrated campaign,The Grey Wiggle rejects their optimism and smiles with unadulterated cynicism. He refuses to sing the Uber Eats order. He paints the house grey. He won't share. This was a hilariously exaggerated version of family takeaway-night drama, whilst also highlighting the role a shared meal can play in bridging those differences. Media was booked to align with shared family moments e.g. during movie ad-breaks, across an AFL partnership and at cinemas.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

Our strategy needed to shift brand perceptions that Uber Eats is ‘for families’ in a way that was consistent with the culture-hacking and disruptive approach we'd built the brand and creative idea with. Our insight that 'on takeaway night, parents care more about everyone enjoying the shared occasion than about enjoying the actual food themselves', led to the central campaign thought that: Sharing an Uber Eats meal can bridge family differences. This strategic focus helped us maximise the earned potential of the Grey Wiggle concept across a 16 week campaign that had multiple 'earned' moments, each of which was designed to hack culture and continue building the storyline 'episodically'. This included a launch with several broadcast exclusives, PR activations and an ongoing drumbeat of organic content. In terms of media outreach, the strategy focused on targeting publications which would reach our core target audience - families.

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

We maximised the earned potential of the Grey Wiggle concept across 16 weeks with multiple PR moments, each of which was designed to hack culture and continue building the storyline 'episodically'. Integrated launch - across paid and earned, with broadcast exclusive interviews with ‘The Grey Wiggle’ (Simon Cowell) on major network C9 (Sunrise) and across News Corp outlets. PR Activation - ‘leaked’ audition tapes of celebrities who didn’t make the cut as the Grey Wiggle. These included Ru Paul, Paralympian Dylan Alcott, Aussie singers and reality TV stars. Ongoing organic content - including a Snapchat filter, influencer partnerships and our highest-performing social content, 'My Octopus Eater' - a spoof of the trending Netflix documentary, featuring a cameo from the Wiggles real-life kids-co-presenter, Henry the Octopus, in which the Grey Wiggle threatens to eat him.

List the results (30% of vote)

Earned Media results: 265 pieces of coverage, with a total reach of 26.7 million 15 pieces of PR and influencer content, with a total reach of 13.6 million Total earned media value = $258,816 Market-level testing was conducted, with control cities where the campaign didn’t run, allowing us to isolate the impact our work had and exclude any covid-lockdown-related effects. Heralded “the most effective brand campaign to date across Uber Eats APAC”, (Data and Measurement Scientist, Uber Eats Marketing) the 16 week campaign delivered… Target audience outcomes Top messaging take-out (68%): ‘Uber Eats brings families together’ 90% ad awareness (+9% vs previous best benchmark) +11% consideration after experiencing campaign +20% brand preference after experiencing campaign +16% purchase intent after experiencing campaign Business outcomes 1.1 million incremental orders $32 million incremental revenue An average of $1.20 increase in basket size (over 2x objective)