Cuisinart - Word of Mom

Challenge:

Strengthen the current relationship with a select target market (urban mothers) and the Cuisinart brand portfolio, through cost- effective awareness programs. This program had an added level of complexity in that urban moms are not easily swayed and only trust like-minded individuals who have experienced the same challenges.

Solution:

• Develop an umbrella “Word of Mom” program that directly targets this key demographic through urbanmoms.ca and other social channels.
• Initiate online web forums to discuss Cuisinart products and current issues affecting urban moms from a food preparation point-of-view (www.cuisinart.ca).
• Invite select members of the urban mom demographic to “Kitchen Parties” to try and experience new products and recipes from Cuisinart. Product demonstrations will be performed by an executive chef at each party.
• Create a large scale “Kitchen Party” called “Mom’s Night Out” with entertainment, product demonstrations, and delicious food for about 320 urban moms. Sponsorship opportunities were created for this once in a lifetime event.
• Select brand ambassadors throughout the country to generate feedback on new initiatives from Cuisinart as well as trial of new products which they would push through their various social channels (www.facebook.com/UrbanMoms).

Results:

• Web forum participation has approximately 6000 urban moms. 
• Urbanmoms.ca increased its membership numbers by 66% as a result of the program. 
• “Kitchen Parties” have been an incredibly off-line extension of the online program. Attended by 12 like-minded “urban moms”, the parties were tremendous showcases for several Cuisinart products as well many new recipes. Parties took place in several urban centres including: Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Montreal.
• Kitchen Party on the Web
  • 41% of all unique visits to urbanmoms.ca were to Kitchen Party
  • Top-3 referring pages:
    • www.urbanmoms.ca
    • member email
    • urbanmoms.ca Mom’s Night Out
  • Consistent top-5 for clickthroughs in member emails.
  • Over 90% of urbanmoms.ca members were aware of the Cuisinart program and 43% recommended a Cuisinart product to a friend during the campaign.
  • On average, 1/3 of hits to Kitchen Party are from outside of urbanmoms.ca, with the majority from Google searches.
• Media exposure for all Kitchen Parties (including Mom’s Night Out) was tremendous with pick-up in Chatelaine, Toronto Sun, National Post, Breakfast Television, CBC, Slice and Rogers Television.
• Qualitative feedback on the Kitchen Parties:
  • "This is the most fun I have had in years. I did not know Cuisinart made all these products."  
  • "Sign me up for the next one!”  Cynthia, Toronto.
  • “I came, I cooked, I ate, what a great idea!”   Deborah, Calgary
  • ”It was great and well organized, it was exactly what moms need – a break!”
  • “It was just great to be a “girl” again.”
  • Mom’s Night Out was sold-out.  Co-sponsors included Cuisinart, Laura Secord, Clinique, Conair, Redd, Shick, Baileys, Frigidaire, HBC, Air Miles, and Sun Rype.