Meal kit subscription service Chefs Plate is making its debut on TV in the hopes it will attract more families after rapid expansion thanks to a millennial customer base.
The Toronto-based service, founded in 2014, delivers 100,000 meals across Canada monthly (a number the company released last summer when it expanded into to B.C., Alberta and Manitoba). In its first TV campaign, the company is taking an educational approach, explaining what its service offers by not only showing a young couple cooking one of the meal kits together, but also a father and his young daughter.
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Chefs Plate’s in-house creatives worked with Toronto production company The Creators Bureau on the spots, with Genuine Media handling the media buy.
Chefs Plate has advertised nationally prior to this, but did so primarily through social and online campaigns targeted at millennials looking for convenient meal options. Sean Hurley, VP of marketing at Chefs Plate, says advertising on those platforms will continue, but adding traditional media to the mix not only gets the service in front of more people, but adds credibility to its brand.
“We are doing really well on our digital channels and acquiring customers at a really good cost-per-acquisition, but we’re realizing that audience we’re acquiring there are millennials that are on social,” Hurley says. “That’s good, but we also want to reach a wider audience, and a new audience.”
Chefs Plate launched its “family plan” in the summer, delivering more ingredients for larger recipes that could feed a family of four. Hurley says the new plan has had a lot of traction so far, but taking a more educational approach in its ads is the best way to bring even more people in to a growing but still new category.
“The ads focus on the fact that we have a sourcing team that’s working with local Canadian farmers to get really good farm-to-table food, and culinary experts that are turning them into recipes that can be made at home in under 30 minutes,” Hurley says. “That’s really attractive to families looking to feed their families something healthy that can also be made after a stressful work day.”