Sharp Think - Best Food & Beverage Campaign

Company: Sharp Think, New York, NY
Company Description: Sharp Think is an award-winning communications agency that blends high octane creative thought with blue-chip strategic rigor to deliver smashing results for clients. Our agency employs over 30 dynamic specialists with a range of expertise across categories such as lifestyle, food & beverage, architecture & design, healthcare, philanthropy, the arts, and more.
Nomination Category: Corporate Communications, Investor Relations, & Public Relations Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Food & Beverage

Nomination Title: Sharp Think Launches Good Catch Frozen Entrees & Appetizers

Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched:
Good Catch launched their new frozen products on July 8, 2020.

Good Catch is a chef-driven revolutionary food company developing flavorful, 100% plant-based seafood alternatives. Founded by pioneering chefs Chad and Derek Sarno, Good Catch products offer the taste, texture, nutrition, and experience of seafood without harming the environment.

While meat-alternatives such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger had made headlines and were gaining great traction amongst a consumer audience over the past few years, seafood-alternatives were relatively unheard of. Good Catch’s products were well-known to a primarily vegan and vegetarian audience, but the brand came to Sharp for the Agency’s expertise in reaching a discerning, yet mainstream consumer market.

In early 2020, Good Catch was preparing for their biggest product launch to-date: Good Catch Frozen Entrees and Appetizers. Good Catch was ramping up production efforts and needed to make sure there was a swell of attention around this launch moment. Comprised of three products, Good Catch New England Style Crab-Free Cakes, Thai Style Fish-Free Cakes, and Classic Style Fish-Free Burgers, the brand tasked Sharp with developing an engaging and meaningful product launch that would encourage product trial amongst key lifestyle and food media and influencers, while continuing to amplify the greater sustainability mission behind the brand.

We knew that if we could just get the new products into the hands (and mouths) of key media, the flavors and even branding would speak for itself. Since Good Catch was still relatively unknown, we decided to treat this product launch as if it were a brand introduction, with key goals as follows:

-Increasing awareness of Good Catch while reinforcing the brand’s key attributes
-Educating new and existing consumers and media about Good Catch’s product offerings to encourage trial and loyalty while strengthening the brand’s environmental benefits
-Generating meaningful coverage
-Differentiating Good Catch from the competitive set

The team began planning the launch in January of 2020, ahead of the coronavirus pandemic. Originally, we concepted and began planning for a seven-course, in-person dinner event. Then March 2020 arrived. While we weren’t sure what the world would look like at launch (July 2020), we knew we needed a plan B.

Our team quickly developed an alternate, COVID-friendly event concept, which would entail a curated experience at home for media and influencer attendees, as well as those they were quarantining with. These were still relatively novel at the time, however we felt confident that through careful coordination and a lot of creativity, we could execute the same memorable experience we had originally planned on.

Our revised launch plan included the following:

At-Home Dining Experience: White-glove delivery of a beautiful, yet sustainable package inclusive of all of the accoutrements needed to assemble an approachable, multi-course meal at home. This included pre-assembled ingredients, tablescape, music playlist, wine pairings and more. Guests were virtually led through their meal prep and brand education through a custom landing page and video content featuring Chef Chad Sarno.

The Sharp team oversaw all logistics to ensure the product remained frozen upon delivery to maintain its integrity throughout the at-home meal prep process.

Targeted Media Outreach: Following the at-home dining experience, Sharp issued a press release announcing the launch and executed tailored, strategic pitching to key trade, business, food and wellness media.

Results

Sharp delivered 25 at-home dinner experiences to top tier media and influencers from outlets including Bon Appetit, Buzzfeed, Food Network, GMA, GQ, Men’s Health, Thrillist, Time Out New York, Well + Good, etc. The experience was ripe for posting on social, with content resulting in over 400k impressions on Instagram.

Sharp secured nearly 189 million impressions via 32 unique placements, including a live interview with the company’s CEO on Cheddar and articles in Forbes, Yahoo! Finance, Well + Good, VegNews, Progressive Grocer, Food Dive and more. Messaging behind the new product and brand mission carried through 100% of the coverage results. Additionally, due to the success of the launch, Good Catch introduced e-commerce so that customershad multiple access points for purchase.

Experience Imagery: Showcases the various components of the launch moment event invite, at-home dining menu, digital microsite development, assembly of ingredients and the final baskets to round out the full experience.

Launch Social Coverage: Highlights the variety of social traction received from media and influencers who took part in this at-home dining experience with Good Catch. Coverage included both Instagram stories and static posts, sharing the range of products and accoutrements delivered.

Launch Earned Media Coverage: Spotlights top-tier coverage received as a result of the launch experience and embargo pitching efforts leading up to the launch moment.