Consumer trends within the butter, fat and oil category continue to shift. While plant-based butter imitators have grown substantially in the past five years, we’re starting to see signs of a slide.
In recent years, the content we’ve produced for our client, Go Bold with Butter, has been focused on real butter’s proof points compared against imitation butter and other fats and oils. However, with plant-based sales getting soft, we saw an opportunity to supplement this comparison content with education on the best ways to use butter. It would deepen our audience’s culinary knowledge, thereby fostering increased usage.
We knew from recent data that our primary target audience, older millennials who cook and bake at home, enjoy the culinary process and are seeking to experiment through tips and hacks. As such, we put educational content at the forefront of all our social efforts—teaching viewers how to make the fluffiest pancakes or the butteriest pasta.
We also knew that the younger generations look at health and wellness holistically, meaning enjoyment, discovery and connection are part of living a balanced life. So, we set out to spark joy and connection through the use of butter, inspiring our audience to cook and bake more often, and to share that enjoyment with others.
We previously saw success with our comparison series, showing how real butter performs in different dishes against competitors. We used the stark visual comparison between real butter and margarine to pique interest and tell the story while keeping the overall look and feel pared back.
Building on this success, we decided to take a similar visual approach with two new content series: Butter Test Kitchen and The Butter Breakdown.
Both series employ compelling food imagery and offer tips and how-to’s—but also explain the food science behind why butter does what it does.
These help to position Go Bold With Butter as a go-to resource and establish real butter as the secret ingredient for making magic happen in the kitchen.
Butter Test Kitchen
Butter Breakdown
We also looked for ways to incorporate education into our typical recipe and inspiration content. For example, we shared a series of easy weeknight pasta dinners that require just a few ingredients—thanks to the emulsification of pasta water and butter to create a simple sauce.
Engagements and video views have both increased by more than 100% across all social channels. We’ll call that a win.
Educational content drove more than 5.3M video views and 100,000+ engagements in the first year of our revamped strategy, so things are going well there, too.