Brief:

• Plant-based food brand Lightlife launched a video series on social media starring late-night host Lilly Singh, who offers comedic advice on how to stop bad habits during the pandemic, per an announcement. "Make a Clean Break with Lilly Singh" debuted yesterday on the @LightlifeFoods channel on Instagram and runs through tomorrow.

• Lightlife's followers have a chance to win a personalized Instagram response from Singh by answering her question,  "What do you need to make a clean break from?" In one video, Singh provides a few ideas on how people can take a break from non-stop snacking, endless scrolling of bad news on their smartphones and bad dates.

• The series builds on Lightlife's recent efforts to streamline its product portfolio, with a focus on using fewer and more recognizable ingredients. The Greenleaf Foods brand is the latest marketer to turn to Instagram as a means of facilitating Q&As, lifestyle tips or educational content during the health crisis.  

Insight:

Lightlife's partnership with Lilly Singh aims to engage social media users with relatable videos that tap into pandemic-specific problems, along with a chance to win a personalized message from the late-night host. In running the campaign on Instagram, Lightlife can reach younger adults who are heavy users of social media, tend to watch mobile video throughout the day and have shown a greater likelihood of adding plant-based foods to their diets.  

The campaign acknowledges some harsh realities around the COVID-19 health crisis, which is seeing another peak in new cases, while adopting a lighthearted tone in trying to help consumers break the bad habits they've formed during lockdowns. Constant scrolling of bad news — deemed "doomscrolling" by some — is one area Lightlife is homing in on. Other aspects of the series spotlight the label's products: To promote Lightlife Plant-Based Ground, Singh also shared her favorite recipe for Shepherd's Pie using the meat substitute, per the announcement.

The "Make a Clean Break" theme reinforces the idea that Lightlife has reduced the number of ingredients in its plant-based foods. The company found in a survey that 86% of consumers said it's important to recognize all the ingredients in a plant-based burger patty.

As people share responses to the videos, Lightlife can extend the reach of the effort among a broader audience. Other marketers have recently leveraged Instagram, including its livestreaming feature, to dole out advice and educational content or provide more detail on new products. DoorDash last week ran an Instagram Live stream answering users questions about voting, while Infiniti partnered with "Hamilton" star Daveed Diggs to show off its new QX80 crossover model with a virtual test drive and Q&A.  

With the concentrated social media push, Lightlife is likely hoping to not only further commitments to cleaning up its portfolio, but also capitalize on the surge in at-home cooking among homebound consumers. 

With more consumers choosing vegan products, U.S. sales of plant-based foods rose by 29% to $5 billion from 2017 to 2019, per data from the Plant Based Foods Association and the Good Food Institute. The biggest part of the market consisted of plant-based milk products with $2 billion in sales, followed by other plant-based dairy at $1.4 billion and plant-based meat at $939 million, the data show. It's likely those numbers climbed even further in 2020 with the pandemic driving strong gains in grocery sales, though there are signs that sales growth is gradually normalizing with prior-year trends.