- Case Study Have You Ever Cooked Lovely Jubbly Really Nice Or Pukka Excellent Food Then You Have Not Seen A Co 1 (310.06 KiB) Viewed 36 times
personalities or lifestyle and psychographic characteristics with
which this brand identity resonates?
CASE STUDY Have you ever cooked "lovely jubbly" [=really nice] or "pukka" [=excellent] food? Then you have not seen a cooking show by the people's chef, Jamie Oliver, so far. The British cook, who helped in his parents' pub's kitchen as a kid, started his career at The River Café, a famous Italian restaurant in West London. That is where he was discovered during the filming of a documentary by the BBC, who sub- sequently offered him his own TV show in 1999,107TV food formats that dominated the TV networks then were either posh, eccentric, or purely instructional. Moving away from these for- mats, the concept of Jamie's "The Naked Chef" programme was based on stripping food down to its plain and pure essen- tials. 108 Jamie's inspirational and authentic demeanour, his enthusiastic passion for healthy fresh food, and his spontane- ous, laid-back approach to cooking was paired with the presen- tation of simple recipes. 109 The idea was to reduce complexity for home cooks, make meals easy, take away the anxiety of preparing dishes from scratch, and thereby encouraging home cooks to prepare food fresh instead of resorting to takeaways. The approach hit home with the show becoming a huge success in the expanding "living well" lifestyle market: from amateur cooks to timid cooks eager to prepare healthy food quickly to the generally growing number of people interested in cooking and food quality, the programme struck the right note. Building on his fame, Jamie embarked upon further TV show formats (e.g., Jamie's Kitchen, Jamie at Home, Jamie's Great Italian Escape) and even started live cook shows in British and Australian theatres.110 In addition, he has pub- lished more than 20 cook books, started his own magazine "Jamie," and has launched his own range of cookware, table- ware, kitchen utensils, and bakeware. Further, the British celebrity chef also pursued several endorsements: sharing the vision of the importance of fresh and tasty food, Jamie became the advertising face of Sainsbury's, one of Britain's largest supermarkets, from 2000 to 2011. His influence on consumers' cooking styles became apparent; for example, in a promotional activity in 2005, Jamie added grated nutmeg over spaghetti Bolognese which caused the sales of nutmeg to shoot up from 1400 jars to 6000 jars a week within a week's time.¹¹2 The German headquartered firm Hello Fresh, which delivers fresh, preportioned ingredients to consumers as a meal-kit, started a co-branding relationship with Jamie in 2016. The company's business model and Jamie's philosophy seem to match perfectly: having fun while cooking fresh food in a simple way.113 In addition, the deal included the promise to make donations for every box sold to Jamie Oliver's Food Foundation, which tries to improve food education. ¹14 Next to his entrepreneurial projects, he also engaged himself in social marketing fighting for environmental causes The Pure and Easy Food Lifestyle as well as against childhood obesity (by proposing a sugar tax on soft drinks) and advocating healthy and nutritious school diners in the UK, 115 All these ventures helped to further enlarge the fan base Jamie had already built up with his TV shows. Moreover, he did not shy away from more dialogue-centred activities with his fans that helped to leverage fan engagement even more: the British chef created online presences on Facebook (6.8 mil- lion subscribers), Twitter (6.75 million followers), YouTube (4 million subscribers), Instagram (7.2 million subscribers), and Pinterest (more than 259,000 followers).¹16 His strategy of regularly adding relevant (and even personal) content, per- sonally contributing to people's comments and discussions as well as listening and even reacting to trends emerging from the community (e.g., gluten-free/dairy-free cooking) makes these channels impactful, engaging, and attractive to users.¹17 However, the Briton also experienced strong criticism as not all his endeavours met the approval of his entire fan base and certain statements created tension within it. Jamie, for example, hurt traditional souls in 2016 when he put forward the inclusion of a particular kind of sausage (chorizo) in a Spanish Paella. His variation of the classic dish was perceived as an insulting transgression and led to an outery on social media over cultural food traditions.¹18 Twitter users who felt provoked became emotional sharing their confusion, upset, anger, and rage. The reactions even made headlines in several leading British newspapers.119 In early 2018, Jamie's popu- larity came under fire when a recipe for a cookie milkshake containing six times the recommended daily sugar intake was published on his website. For his fans, he had messed with the value of healthy food he personified. ¹20 Even his admirable commitment against childhood obesity went too far for some: nutritionists and dieticians criticised the nega- tive language used by him in the campaign (e.g., war on obe- sity), which affects vulnerable children. 121 After an interview on a British morning TV show about the campaign, he got criticized by many viewers for being too patronising about the subject.¹22 What is more, being an open advocate for environmental responsibility, Jamie's partnership with the oil company Shell, which involved healthy on-the-go food being introduced by Jamie at 500 Shell service stations, was deemed hypocritical by politicians and fans.¹2 123 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS CS 7-1 Describe Jamie Oliver's brand personality. Iden- tify consumer personalities or lifestyle and psycho- graphic characteristics with which this brand identity resonates?