Organic Valley repurposes influencers' videos to promote ghee

Dive Brief:

Food marketer Organic Valley is promoting its ghee product with the "Ghee-lish Any Dish" campaign featuring Food Network chef Katie Lee and several "censored" video clips created by YouTube cooking stars, according to MediaPost.
Every time one of the influencers mentions butter or oil in a video, the word is bleeped out and replaced with a high-pitched "ghee" sound while a package of ghee covers the butter or oil and the Organic Valley label appears over the chefs' mouth. Ghee is clarified butter, commonly used in Indian food, which can be used in place of butter or oil. The campaign, created with Humanaut agency, includes 17 different videos in 60-, 30-, 15- and six-second versions. In the 60-second spot, a spokeswoman describes how ghee can be used and explains that "all the internet YouTubers are doing it," before showing clips of influencers, including Donal Skehan, Kent Rollins, Momma Cherri, Billy Parisi, Darius Williams and Alyssa Gagarin.
Each of the influencers has their own dedicated video and will begin posting videos on their own social media platforms beginning July 9. The campaign is set to run until the end of the year on multiple platforms, including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, and sites including Bon Appetit, Epicurious, Food Network, Serious Eats, HGTV and The Daily Meal. There will also be programmatic site buys, including People, Refinery29, Buzzfeed, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Time and Pop Sugar.

Dive Insight:

Organic Valley has found a unique way to tap into the interest in influencer marketing by repurposing existing content as it looks to raise awareness of its ghee product among consumers interested in food videos. Ghee has been embraced by some foodies for its unique flavor and ability to be used in high-heat cooking but broad awareness of its use beyond Indian cooking remains limited.

“Censoring” existing video clips and tapping into the expertise of cooking influencers is helping the brand take a humorous approach to showing how the ghee product can be used in everyday recipes. The campaign, which features educational and how-to content, could resonate with millennials who often consider themselves to be foodies.

A number of marketers are investing more in influencer marketing as these content creators can help engage consumers in authentic ways. Nearly 40% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets in 2018, spend up to $50,000 and take a multi-faceted approach, according to Linqia research. Glad, owned by Clorox, recently teamed up with food influencer and YouTube creator Hannah Hart on “The Upside Down Cooking Challenge,” which showed Hart making a giant burrito while she and the cooking ingredients were suspended upside down to demonstrate the strength of Glad Press’n Seal.

Organic Valley is also following several brands in experimenting with different lengths and distribution channels for their video campaigns. Using a variety of video lengths across platforms will help the brand extend the reach of the campaign. Digital video spend hit a record in 2017 at $11.9 billion, a 33% year-over-year increase from 2016, according to IAB research. Mobile continues to drive marketers’ video push — mobile video grew 54% to $6.2 billion.