Changing the perception of Iceland and frozen food through a TV mini-series
Serving Up Tasty Content with Iceland
The Big Idea
We went all out – collaborating with C4 Commissioning, C4 talent & the7stars to truly embody the Power of Frozen. The best way to champion this was to create something entirely new for Iceland - the first ever linear TV cookery show that championed frozen behaviours & featured frozen food. It had never been done before, and it perfectly aligned their core values with an editorial ambition we had to make cookery accessible to families, in a way that was fresh, entertaining but rooted in practicality.
Airing after Sunday Brunch, helmed by our top chef, Simon Rimmer, and featuring real families - Eat The Week with Iceland (ETW) had modern families at its heart. It would weave frozen food, behaviours, and freezer tips subtly amongst eating well, saving money, reducing wastage & looking at provenance, to ensure that Iceland invited the UK to see frozen as the key to smarter, healthier living.
Eat the Week has allowed us to go deeper than spot advertising would allow, helping us to tell the Iceland story to a more affluent audience and convert non-believers through long form content. Positive early results show we’ve been able to break down audience preconception and help take the Power of Frozen to the next level” - Nick Canning, Managing Director, Iceland
Making it Happen
We worked with Ofcom to utilise the full benefits of product placement, allowing us to truly integrate Iceland’s products & frozen behaviours into the show in a way that was useful and relevant, but not forced. We had to place the highest quality checks on everything to ensure we created a brilliant cookery show that sat perfectly on C4, that also pushed Iceland’s values in a way that would drive viewers to positively encourage them to believe in the show, the products, the recipes and ultimately, in Iceland.
Hungry Gap Productions produced a modern, friendly, inviting kitchen base for Simon & the families to thrive in, and brought our ambition to life. Iceland then capitalised on the show further by placing relevant TV spots in the ETW ad breaks, then teasing & amplifying content across YouTube, Facebook & Twitter.
The first episode averaged 400K
viewers per week
71%
of viewers surveyed would now consider Iceland for frozen food
The Results
Bespoke mid-series research proved that ETW is already delivering on Iceland's goals: the first episode in May delivered an average of 561 kinds, 2x our forecast & has averaged 400k viewers p/w, remaining above slot average. In addition to this, 71% of viewers surveyed would now consider Iceland for frozen food and over a third of Iceland ‘rejectors’ agreed that Icelands association with ETW would make them more likely to consider shopping there.
Overall, of those whose opinion of Iceland improved, 127% were more likely to say ETW told them something new about frozen food and 182% were more likely to want to find out more about Iceland.
