AWARD School 2018 Live Brief winner, Phoebe Sloane worked alongside Facebook and food rescue organisation OzHarvest to bring her idea to life. From pen to production, Phoebe shares her experience of the process and what it was like to work with some of the industry’s finest (including a few notable chefs).
“Brief #4, was my favourite piece of Award School work. Not because of the win (which was the most unexpected cherry on top of my Award School journey), but because I genuinely found it interesting. Part of the joy (and the pain!) that Award School briefs bring are these ‘sticky’ kind of problems that command big-picture thinking – nothing is really off limits. This brief was no different and called for a social media campaign that changed the way Aussies look at their leftovers. There were a handful of elements that intrigued me – a millennial foodie-culture, a complex, yet fascinating, food waste behaviour and the opportunity to use social media for good.
Did I also mention this was food-related?
But what I didn’t realise at the time was just how much I would learn beyond submitting that final black and white scamp.
The original piece was called ‘My Kitchen Bin Rules’ – a live social channel that used leftovers from a cooking challenge during the ad break of TV show ‘My Kitchen Rules’. However, with this real-world brief, came real client considerations, and due to a conflict of interest with partnerships, this idea could not be executed. But hey, that’s advertising – you’ve got to keep thinking and solving problems, even after the ideas are signed off.
I was given the opportunity to start again, only this time I got to brainstorm alongside some brilliant minds in Andy Simpson and Denny Handlin at Creative Shop, Facebook. I also roped in my killer creative partner Matt Bladin. We bounced ideas back and forth between Sydney and Melbourne – it was an exciting collaboration.
Out of this, the Leftover Makeover was born; a cooking challenge that encouraged Aussies to convert their leftovers into insta-worthy meals. We launched the campaign at a time where food waste was at its highest – Christmas.
And we brought on board some celebrity cooking legends to help tell the story.
We recruited culinary geniuses Matt Moran, Neil Perry and others to show Australia just how a leftover makeover should be done.
Transforming a lonely piece of leftover ham into a mouth-watering croque madame and some dismal prawn heads into a tantalising tagliatelle – we used the Instagram story-telling platform to spread the word. We also built targeted Facebook ads, to remind Aussies of the use-by dates of certain foods after their Christmas feast.
It was a privilege to work with Facebook and to use creativity for good for OzHarvest. To have the opportunity to apply the thinking I had learned throughout AWARD school in a professional setting, was not only eye-opening, but hugely satisfying.
To bring an idea to life, well, that’s what we live for as creatives – the joy of making something that resonates with someone. There’s so much involved between ideation and execution and to see your concept come to life, is such a fulfilling thing.
Almost as filling as Matt Moran’s grilled cheese extravaganza.”
#Leftovermakeover Instagram stories
