Dish Cult is a subsidiary of Accor Plus, a world-leading travel & lifestyle group and digital innovator offering unique experiences in more than 4,500 hotels, resorts, and residences across 100 different countries.
Background
Dish Cult was a division of the Accor Group as part of their ongoing initiative to “augment the hospitality experience” by integrating services that cater to the various different lifestyles of consumers and ultimately expanding these services beyond just accommodation.
The aim was to provide people with an “uber for people dining out” – a restaurant booking app with plenty of personalisation options and a rewards program that allowed users – be they dedicated foodies or anyone looking to get the most out of their culinary experience.
I joined Dish Cult product team as Head of Marketing in January and had the privilege to work alongside a team, based across NZ, Singapore and Vietnam. Among them were several industry leaders who had come from the likes of Fox Network Asia, DBS Bank and Grab (just to drop a few names).
Unfortunately, the team’s tenure at Dish Cult was short-lived due to the unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak, leading to a division-wide redundancy. Despite this, we saw massive interests even just in Auckland, the global pilot testing ground for the app – chosen for its unique food and beverage culture. Just prior to the lockdown, we were planning on rolling out the app to Wellington, Christchurch and the UK.
ADS
Dish Cult had run some ads prior to my joining, however, the creative wasn't as optimised as it could have been. After examining the data, it was clear that we needed to roll out new creative sooner than later.
So I got together with the team for a brainstorming session and we came up with a concept of what we wanted to achieve. We then worked with our designers, videographers and video editors to produce a number of high-quality video creatives that would be used in our ads going forward - leading Dish Cult's marketing from obscurity into visibility!
The perfect mix of creativity, quality, and hunger.
The new creative absolutely crushed it. Every potential consumer, from young to old, loved it and was eager to share their feedback on social media.
Photography
Have you ever gotten hungry looking at a picture of food? In order to make you never look away from our Facebook ads again, we staged some killer photos for our campaigns.
These were just a few of the static executions that we developed with photographer Kelly Reeve as part of our marketing.
The idea was to appeal to our target demographic by simply making the logo the only text element, allowing the food to sell itself by taking centre stage.
Social Media
We didn’t just post pictures of burgers and lattes on Instagram, we use food to tell stories about our clients and their food.
Following the same visual storytelling philosophy that we used in our photography, we created a series of gifs that prioritised what mattered most to our customers – the cuisine. Not only did they get to see delicious, mouthwatering food but also watch it being prepared!
This was the carousel component of the campaign. Designed for mobile (where the vast majority of potential consumers view these ads)
The idea was to simulate the feeling of looking over a banquet of artesian foods, inviting them to imagine the sort of experiences Dish Cult can help them enjoy.
generated large amounts of interactions with potential customers.
generated large amounts of interactions with potential customers.
Content marketing
Knowing what's going on in your local culinary scene is a big part of food culture. The Dish Cult website acted as an online magazine covering everything happening on the Auckland food scene in addition to a directory of restaurants along with their contact information, photos of the food, menus and hours of operation.
From restaurant reviews, upcoming events, in-depth interviews with local chefs, to where you can get the best cupcakes or vegan desserts near you, we let your taste buds guide you to find out what's happening on the food front and where to eat it.