Oklahoma Natural Gas – Good vs. Gourmet Cooking Series
What’s the difference between home cooks and culinary masterminds? To build awareness of the benefits of cooking with natural gas, the Hahn Agency created a Good vs. Gourmet cooking series for Oklahoma Natural Gas (ONG). In the 4-episode series, professional Oklahoma chefs whipped up their favorite homemade dish two ways: good and gourmet.
The Challenge: Create Unique Content in a Crowded Field of Online Cooking Videos
To first understand how we could be successful in creating cooking content in an already crowded space, Hahn’s Digital Team conducted some research.
In the research, the team found that 8 in 10 Americans watch cooking shows. Of this number, 60% were women, 25% were ages 18-34 and 36% were ages 35-54, which fit in ONGs’ target audience (ages 23-38).
We also analyzed cooking shows from the ‘50s to now and saw that expectations evolved from the traditional content with more education and more narration to the modern content with more entertainment and less narration. Over time, cooking shows heightened in popularity with more variations from competitions like Chopped to shows associated with food, travel and culture to short and sweet Tasty-style videos.
Additionally, research showed that with any good show, it requires the perfect balance of character, structure and conflict.
The Solution: Character + Structure + Conflict = Good vs. Gourmet
The Hahn Agency used the above findings to inform our Good vs. Gourmet concept.
To ensure we were creating a successful and engaging series, we first looked at the characters by casting well-known local chefs in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, who were likely to be more familiar and relatable to viewers. Next, we structured the series into four episodes, so viewers knew what to expect in each video. Lastly, we centered the conflict around asking each chef to make a homemade (good) version of their recipe then a restaurant quality (gourmet) version. The viewer then had the opportunity to stick to what they were comfortable with or accept the challenge to be the chef in their own kitchen.
An Online Destination
Of course, with any show, there has to be a platform to view all the content. Therefore, Hahn Web Development Team created a new cooking microsite for ONG, with the goal of turning it into a future cooking destination for other videos.
Video Is Key
For the production of all the content, Hahn teamed up with our Creative Team and Retrospec Films, an Oklahoma production company, to develop the script and produce the videos. Luckily, the team was able to finalize production a few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Social Promotion Boost
To promote the series, Hahn’s PR team dedicated a week of boosted social promotion for each chef. After the season finale, we did another round of promotion with monthly boosted social posts highlighting why the featured chefs prefer cooking with natural gas. We also partnered with the featured chefs and their restaurants to share our posts.
Hahn’s Digital Team incorporated an all-digital paid media plan on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and native for two flights: June-Oct then Nov-Dec.
The Results: Surpassed Benchmarks and Won Awards
The Good vs. Gourmet series achieved its goal of creating awareness of cooking with gas in a creative and engaging way with the audience in mind. Because of the pandemic, more people were cooking from home, likely driving additional interest in the show.
The microsite also allowed for a better user experience for those wanting to engage with the series. The videos were also posted to ONG’s social feeds, which is where the majority of their target audience spends most of their time.
Digital advertising successfully amplified the reach of the campaign. Testing multiple video trailers, text headlines and audience targeting allowed us to optimize to the strategy that worked best on each channel and produce the most cost-efficient results.
3,300,000
VIDEO VIEWS
Across all campaign assets (trailer ads + episodes + bio videos + boosted video posts).
2,000
HOURS
Spent on microsite (session x average session duration).
21
MINUTES
Average time spent on episode pages.
Gold & Bronze Awards
We created an award-winning show, earning gold distinctions in the Oklahoma ADDYs and bronze distinctions in the district ADDYs. The district awards include the best campaigns in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.