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Social media-led
campaign helps cut
food waste in Norfolk

NCC. Plan Eat Save

The Challenge

Norfolk’s average family with children wastes around £700 a year buying and then throwing away good food and drink. That equates to a staggering 63,000 tonnes of food that’s wasted in Norfolk a year; the equivalent of 140 Boeing 747 aeroplanes. Not only wasting families’ money, treating and disposing of household rubbish collected from the kerbside is costing Norfolk County Council (NCC) over £22 million a year.*

Our Solution

In June 2016, OneAgency launched Plan Eat Save – a NCC initiative proud to support Love Food Hate Waste in Norfolk. Opting for a social media-led campaign – with its own bright, engaging brand and fun, yet informative voice – we created Plan Eat Save Facebook, Instagram and Twitter profiles. Each channel offers a great way of regularly sharing top tips, delicious recipes and nifty ideas to help the people of Norfolk start planning meals, eating smart and saving money.

Results

In the year since the campaign launched, Plan Eat Save has grown from nothing to a huge success on social media, engaging a local audience and getting a great response from followers. Plan Eat Save reached 200,000 each month on Facebook and 150,000 on Twitter, with the total following across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram totting in at over 5410 people. Over the year, the campaign was seen over 5.9m times across Facebook and Twitter combined.

Creating rich and attention-grabbing content

Using a lively and friendly, yet clear and informative tone of voice, we drafted a social media calendar around five key messages: meal planning, knowing your food dates, correct food storage, measuring food portions and loving your leftovers. Tailored for each channel and to each season, the calendar also covered the environmental and financial impact of wasting food.

Working with influencers

We appointed brand ambassador Ian Haste of Haste’s Kitchen – one of Norfolk’s best loved chefs and YouTubers – to not only support Plan Eat Save on social media, but to also create bespoke video content for the campaign.

Ian filmed a series of Love Food Hate Waste inspired top tips and recipes, and with each short, snappy and informative video used across the three social media channels, we were able to track both views and engagement.

Influencers - Plan Eat Save cooking demo with Ian Haste
Influencers - The Plan Eat Save Cooking Demo
Influencers - Ian Haste's Breadcrumbs Top Tip | Plan Eat Save
Influencers - Plan Eat Save
Influencers - Ian Haste's DIY Breakfast Bar | Plan Eat Save
Influencers - Chilis
Influencers - Ian Haste's Apple Freezing Tip | Plan Eat Save
Influencers - Ian Haste's Top Salad Saving Tip | Plan Eat Save
Influencers - Ian Haste's Mint Raita & Chicken Wrap | Plan Eat Save

Event planning & PR

With NCC’s waste reduction team attending numerous events throughout the campaign, we created an interactive event stand, complete with pull ups, flags and backdrops. We also arranged for Ian Haste to cook up a feast of tasty recipes centred on reducing food waste at an event outside the Forum. We organised food samples, designed recipe cards to give out to the public, filmed the food demonstrations, issued a pre-event press release and invited media to cover the day. The event also saw the launch of Plan Eat Save’s Norfolk Food Waste Challenge. Families and people across Norfolk were invited to take up the challenge, which promised to save Norfolk households up to £60 a month by following advice to cut down on food waste. We designed a badge and eshots for those who signed up, which linked to a survey on completion of the challenge.

Creating Clarity Creating Clarity Creating Clarity

Targeting a local audience

Why social works


As well as creating a vibrant and engaging campaign, targeting a niche demographic was also a key. Plan Eat Save needed to reach and appeal to Norfolk’s young professionals aged 16 – 34 and young families aged 25 – 44; two groups identified as households that waste the most food. NCC were also keen to reach residents across the entire county, not just Norwich.

By allocating budget to social media advertising, we were able to directly target our audience by location, age and interests. We also created tailored content using a tone and visuals that would appeal to a younger audience.

The campaign was seen over 5.9m times

The results


In the year since the campaign launched, Plan Eat Save has grown from nothing to a huge success on social media, engaging a local audience and getting a great response from followers.

As of June 2017, Plan Eat Save was reaching 200,000 each month on Facebook and 150,000 on Twitter, with the total following across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram totting in at over 5410 people.

Over the year, the campaign was seen over 5.9m times across Facebook and Twitter combined, and on Facebook alone reached 1.9m people (unique users). Analytics show that the geographical location and age range of Plan Eat Saves followers is also spot on, predominantly based in Norfolk and 20-40 years old.

On Facebook, Plan Eat Save’s followers resided in the following top 10 cities: Norwich, King's Lynn, London, Lowestoft, Dereham, Thetford, North Walsham, Wymondham, Gorleston-on-Sea and Attleborough; demonstrating wide spread coverage of Norfolk. The campaign even gained followers as far afield as USA, the Philippines, South Africa and Australia, and even has one from the tiny island of St. Helena!

As well as reaching the right people, Plan Eat Save’s social media platforms showed fantastic engagement. Videos on Facebook were viewed 68.8k times, Facebook posts were liked a total of 6.1k times, while comments and private messages came in their masses, covering everything from those who had learnt something new about how to store food and were shocked at how much money they could be saving, to those that were planning to try a leftovers recipe at home.

The survey taken by those who took on the Norfolk Food Waste Challenge echoed the same feedback, with results showing that a whopping 88% of those surveyed said they'd saved money as a result of taking the Challenge and 84% saying they now throw away less food.

With journalists even taking on the Challenge, Plan Eat Save also saw great regional press coverage, including the EDP, BBC Radio Norfolk, Feast, Just Regional and Mustard TV.


It’s been fantastic working with you all, you’ve delivered creative of a consistently high standard and your advice and support around social media has been second to none.  We wouldn’t hesitate to work with you again in the future!


Louise Banning
Principal Communications Officer
Norfolk County Council

Facebook

Page likes

3,009 likes
3,010 followers

Page likes

Impressions

2,300,00 impressions 1,932,366 total reach 216,757 organic reach 1,715,609 paid reach

Impressions

Facebook video views

68.8k

Highest performing video:
Ian's breadcrumb tip. Total
viewing time: 3,400 minutes

Facebook video views

Instagram

Page activity

815 followers
20,631 reach

Instagram activity

Twitter

Page activity

1,585 followers
1,200,000 impressions

Twitter impressions

Overall

Overall campaign impressions

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