Best use of Print: The Loadshedding Cookbook
Agency: New Media
Client: Woolworths
Award: Gold, Best use of Print: 2023
Brief
South Africa has been struggling with a serious energy crisis for the past decade, but the past 12 months have seen the situation escalate to extreme levels. South Africans have been experiencing rolling power cuts almost every day for hours at a time as the nation’s power utility, Eskom, struggles with the routine failure of its power stations due to years of negligence, management incompetence and, in some cases, deliberate sabotage. When it cannot manage the load, Eskom is forced to escalate the power cuts to prevent the grid from collapsing.
At its worst levels, “loadshedding” as it is called, can last for up to four hours at a time and South Africans can be without electricity for up to 12 hours a day in total. As with most large retailers and supermarkets, New Media’s client Woolworths has invested billions in generators to continue to trade and ensure an uninterrupted cold chain (one of its most important selling points). As South Africa’s premium supermarket, quality and convenience are critical to Woolworths’ positioning.
New Media has been publishing Woolworths’s customer magazine, TASTE, since 2003. Although it is a marketing tool for the client, it has a premium cover price and is one of the best (and earliest) examples of true content marketing in South Africa.
Cover sales and advertising both contribute revenue that offsets the client’s cost to publish, and the brand has been extended across multiple TASTE-branded platforms, amassing a highly engaged audience across web, email and social media.
The magazine published its 20th anniversary issue this year …
At the beginning of 2022, New Media proposed the idea for a standalone issue of TASTE magazine that would address the needs of customers struggling to cook and feed their families thanks to the increasing frequency of loadshedding. Those who can afford them have invested in gas stoves, inverters, solar panels and other power sources, but for the vast majority of South Africans even getting dinner on the table has become a struggle.
Solution
TASTE’s Loadshedding Cookbook is aimed specifically at dealing with the evening power outages between 4pm and 6.30pm and between 6pm and 8.30pm. Since TASTE has been developing recipes for the past 20 years, there is a repository of over 6 000 recipes on its website, but order to make these more accessible we wanted to curate a collection that would offer different customer segments options that they would not have to search for.
The cookbook, which features 89 recipes, was divided into five different chapters, each of which outlined a strategy that would service a different kind of cook and suit a certain loadshedding period. There is an element of planning involved in most of the chapters, but having all the best options in one collection was a unique offering. The biggest section, FAST, consists of recipes that can all be cooked in under 30 minutes (and would benefit from particular tools such as an air-fryer or a portable gas hob). There is also a chapter for those who are more inclined to plan and might want to cook in bigger batches so that the family has leftovers to freeze or reinvent, for example. This chapter, PREP AHEAD, suggests recipes where you can prepare or cook parts of a dish in advance and then either reheat or finish it off just before the power goes off or right after it comes back on. Similarly, the ONE PAN chapter also involves some prep, getting an oven tray ready to go in or cooking everything in one pot if you have gas or have invested in a two-plate gas hob. It also means fewer dishes to wash in the dark.
The ASSEMBLY chapter was designed for the true Woolworths devotee as the retailer is known for its wide range of excellent convenience meals and prepared products. We wanted to draw customers’ attention to pantry and freezer items that they might not be aware of and that could make getting dinner made faster – or made ahead – much easier.
The last chapter is devoted to one of South Africa’s favourite past-times, BRAAI, and the collection was specifically timed to go on sale before the public holiday known as Heritage Day on 24 September, which has also become synonymous with Braai Day. All these recipes are designed to be cooked over coals.
In addition to the carefully curated recipe selection, which draws on existing recipes so there was no additional content cost for the client, the art director created icons for each chapter and method of cooking so that these could be easily cross-referenced across the book. For example, a “fast” dish might also qualify as “assembly” or “one pot” – so if you are in a pinch and haven’t planned ahead but also don’t feel like cooking, these would be the recipes to choose.
The Loadshedding Cookbook, which was produced at the same time as the 20th Anniversary Issue, and by the same team, was scheduled to go on sale during winter, when it is dark across most of South Africa by 6pm at the latest and temperatures can drop to beneath 10 degrees Celsius. It is worth noting that South African homes are not equipped with central heating and the population relies on gas or wood fires and electric heaters to warm their homes.
The on-sale period would be just under three months, from mid-August to the end of October. See the teaser ad for the special issue here:
Results
At the time of submitting this entry, the TASTE Loadshedding Cookbook had been on sale for just over a month and had sold 50% of its total print order. With a cover price of R100, a percentage of advertising revenue and almost no cost to produce new recipes or images, this means that this project has already broken even and has effectively cost the client nothing.
The cookbook has also received significant coverage in the media – with the food director cooking the cover recipe on the morning TV show Expresso (which airs via the national broadcaster) and the editor, food director and contributing editors have been interviewed on several radio stations and for several newspapers. The total value of press coverage received to date equals R1.1 million (£46 000, with the reach estimated at over 20 million.
Woolworths has since requested proposals for several new standalone publications – at a time when print is mostly in decline. According to projections we expect the cookbook to achieve a sell-through of above 85%, and potentially require a second print run.
Says Woolworths’ head of food marketing, Elizka Ferreira: “The TASTE brand supports Woolies’ positioning as the leading quality food retailer in South Africa and plays an important role in driving customer loyalty. This special edition affirms our commitment to great content marketing, giving our customers even more value at a time when they need it most.”