THE Covid-19 comms

The brief

Discount dining is at the forefront of tastecard’s proposition, so Covid-19 threw a spanner in the works for the brand. With the government’s introduction of Eat Out to Help Out, which offered the same benefits as tastecard but for only three days a week, I took the opportunity to make a stir. I led campaigns and creative that spoofed government campaigns, made playful yet tasteful puns but kept the tastecard brand proposition at the forefront at all times.

The campaign: Rishi, who?

With cultural relevance on our side, I took the opportunity to push tastecard’s witty tone and brand positioning as playful and culturally relevant. Bringing man of the moment Rishi Sunak into creative, we instantly gained traction. The ads were picked up by marketers and shared across LinkedIn, as well as CPAs performing the best we’d seen since pre-Covid times.

Homepage: tastecard’s out to help out

Paid social: That offer, though

Following the success of our ‘Rishi’ tongue in cheek creative and seeing brand recognition and new member sign ups increase, I conceptualised two new lots of bold, playful, humorous creative. The first spoofed the iconic ‘Distracted Boyfriend’ meme.

Paid Social: an unprecedented offer

For the second paid and organic social concepts, I played into the Rishi and tastecard relationship, arming Rishi with a wealth of dad jokes and witty edge.

Paid Social: Hands. Face. Pizza.

With students being told to self-isolate in their newly aquired adobes, food delivery was the only option for some. Spoofing the government’s questionable “Hands. Face. Space.” advice, I incorporated this messaging into a Pizza Hut Delivery campaign. We targeted students across paid social, email and across creative featured on certain affiliate partners’ sites.

social & CRM: Covid-19 statement

As the world changed, so did tastecard. With restaurants, cinemas and attractions closed, tastecard needed to update members on their memberships but keep customer wellbeing and a human nature at the forefront. This messaging was rolled out across social, featured in a member email and added to a landing page with a homepage slot.

 Instagram engagement: 183 likes, 10 comments, 10 shares and 7 saves.

Editorial: Dish List Vegan Cookie Dough recipe.

As tastecard restaurants like PizzaExpress, Cafe Rouge and ASK Italian closed, restaurant content needed a switch up. Wanting to champion restaurants’ food and show our support as well as bring members valuable foodie content, I created the Dish List series. Showcasing a different signature restaurant dish in every content piece, each post featured a simple step by step recipe. This was rolled out across the blog which was featured on a homepage slot for members, sent to members and non-members via email, and repurposed as social content.

The below example is a social post featuring Bella Italia’s Vegan Cookie Dough. And the blog post can be found here.

social: Thought-pieces.

As well as chain restaurants, tastecard also have hundreds of independent restaurants onboard. To show support to these local gems, I wrote a “How you can do your bit for independent restaurants” blog post, which can be found here.

And the “5 easy ways you can help during Covid-19” blog post can be found here.