2022 Gold Launch

Agency: OLIVER/U-Studio

Client: Pot Noodles, Unilever

Campaign Name: Lost The Pot

Campaign Overview

The relaunch of Lost the Pot noodle flavours needed a boost from paid and organic social to engage a wider audience.

Strategy

The objective was to convince the brand’s previous rejectors to retry the product and convince Batchelors consumers to give Lost the Pot noodles a go.

The original product launch in 2020 but failed due to a lack of flavour. The team decided to take a quintessentially British approach to its problem: owning that previous mistake in a satirical, self-deprecating fashion.

The humour resonated with its audience. Famed for its irreverence and unpolished, real aesthetic, this was the ideal moment for Pot Noodle to be self-aware in its apology, and foster brand love.

Creativity

Flavourology was launched: a revolutionary business strategy that would change the face of noodles forever, by ‘adding flavour to stuff’. Phase one was contextualising the mistake, and giving reasons for the relaunch. Phase two was about relaunching the product, ‘Now with Flavour’.

Results

In eight weeks, the campaign tallied 256,000 engagements, organic reach of 1.5 million and organic ER of 22.7%.

Social sentiment flipped to positive, with even rejectors returning to comment. Sales uplifted by 20% in-store and the brand enjoyed a 38% increase in market share.

Unilever recognised Pot Noodle’s entry into the block noodle category as an opportunity for market share growth. This was a key campaign for the brand and its success was pivotal to the wider company's growth goals.

The Team

OLIVER/U-Studio - Rod Sobral, Global Chief Creative Officer - Sam Jacobs, Creative Director - Rae Stones, Creative Director - Kate Woolley, Creative Lead - Sara Lim, Account Director - Ross Redman, Senior Designer - Sonal Suklliker, Junior Designer - Oliver Kuscher, Copywriter - Georgia Foxwell, Senior Community Manager - Tobi Fasanya, Junior Community Manager - Thomas Claridge, Global Director of Planning - Dominique Gomes, Managing Partner - Chris Rautenbach, Editor

Unilever - Angus Giddins, Brand Manager - Lena Portchmouth, Marketing Manager - Kelly Sidey, Ice Cream Digital Hub, F&R Ecommerce Strategy Head