As a great part of our lives is becoming more and more digitized, the global market competition for digital sharing and discovery of recipes is drastically rising. The infinite availability of resources and recipes online creates at the same time inconvenience for the users to discover the best source, and for the recipe platforms to stand out among all competitors. However, due to the decreased demand for printed cookbooks and cooking related products, it is inevitable to switch to digital.
IMP – International Masters Publishers creates and promotes cooking related products (recipes, hobbies, home entertainment and education). They approached Solveo upon the transition from printed cookbooks to a digital recipe-sharing platform and they required a holistic brand strategy for smooth transition, discovery of new customer segments and rapidly increasing the customer base in the US.
Conduct market research, competitors analysis
Discover core values and unique selling points
Brand audit and problem discovery
Identifying target consumers’ needs and behaviors
Strategy for engaging current and gaining new users
Develop a monetization strategy
During the four week project, four multidisciplinary teams of five participants were guided by the team of Solveo in creating strategies to increase the platform’s user base, to engage with the existing users and discovering ways to monetize the business. The project launched with a detailed brand audit/analysis of the current status: number of new users, number of regular users, current marketing strategy, UX and UI of the platform. By diving into market research, each of the teams identified specific problems to tackle to which they offered solutions. During the project, the participants surveyed more than 300 people, analyzed more than 20 competitors, got in touch with 20 industry experts and delivered backed solutions.
THE SOLUTION
The first step, before providing a solution was to identify the key problems that the business is facing. Having identified that the 2 main problems are low brand awareness compared to competitors, low user engagement and by identifying a new market opportunity, the teams created their solutions. First, to increase brand awareness, the solution is to increase social media interaction with food facts, to add a calorie calculator to the platform and to introduce regular video engagement. Second, to improve customer engagement the winning solution proposal was to create a culinary show featuring the users. Lastly, one of the teams identified a new potential market segment being mothers with kids or babies. The solution is to create a new category with baby/child food which would attract and engage a new audience.
