Interview with Kruti Kamdar on the FoodOfIndia Campaign
TikTok recently collaborated with FoodFood TV Channel, which is one of the leading food and lifestyle network channels in India. The campaign was supported by leading Indian chefs and TikTok creators, who took part in #FoodOfIndia challenge by sharing interesting local food recipes from different parts of India. The campaign was warmly received by consumers, successfully created a sense of pride among Indians for expressing the huge diversity of foods and flavours in India. The #FoodOfIndia hashtag also generated high engagement on TikTok and social media networks.
Food, as we know, is a wide-spread category. Food is not just about the taste and filing hunger, it is also an expression of love, cultural bonding. TikTok is a unique platform, which not only allows you to explore and discover food through videos, but it is also a tool that helps you bond with other food lovers. You can share your food recipes, express the flavours of what you have cooked or tasted, and most importantly celebrate the goodness and variety of food from different parts of the world, all through the medium of videos. By partnering with Food Food TV, TikTok brought life, fun and warmth for the food content vertical.
Kruti Kamdar, who is part of TikTok's Global Marketing team in India, and one of the leads on the FoodOfIndia campaign, took us through the journey.
Our employees and their role
Chandni: What was the role of the marketing team at TikTok India for this project?
Kruti: Our role is to evaluate TikTok's business requirements, analyze content and consumer trends across the industry. We then partner with a brand or media network as per our business needs to develop innovative, fun and meaningful content partnership and drive 360 marketing campaign to promote the partnership. For example, in partnership with Food Food TV, we produced short series of TikTok food videos featuring famous Indian chefs and TikTok creators, and cross promoted the campaign on Food Food TV and other outbound social media channels.
Chandni: Who else was involved in this project from TikTok?
Kruti: Our Marketing operations team was a key support for us, as they are responsible for designing and driving all the in-app campaign executions. They also come with a great knowledge in content marketing, which guides us and our partners for creating successful and appealing content for the audience.
Chandni: How involved were our employees in the production of the short videos on television?
Kruti: There is a vast difference between the the audience and content format on TV (i.e. long format content) and TikTok (i.e. short format content). To find a balance between both these media worlds, all the stakeholders including Food Food TV's marketing and content team, TikTok's marketing and Operations team came together to ideate and produce a series of Food videos that could appeal both the platform audiences.
Learning and results
Chandni: What results did you want to see through this relationship with Food Food?
Kruti: While working with partners like Food Food, it's fun to learn deeply about what they do; namely, food!
The relation with Food Food, gave our food content an entry on TV medium. We made 100 minutes of content in total that was aired on Television. We broke the myth and created a case study on how TikTok's short format content (of less than 1 minute) can work successfully and highly appeal the TV audience.
The recording
Chandni: How long did it take and what was it like to be on a video shoot?
Kruti: The shoot for #FoodOfIndia video series was planned for 9 hours in total. We shot multiple video episodes on #FoodOfIndia of under 1 minute each. Each one of us learned about the creativity and hard work it took to create food videos. Since cooking food is an art, a lot of the edits had to be recorded candidly and spontaneously with chefs and creators. Overall, as a marketeer, it was very insightful to witness the food content creation from inside-out.
On TikTok, creators from different parts of India showcased the different delicacies and food preparations from their local regions. The challenge featured various ways to express food — not everyone is a chef, so we gave people the opportunity to be a blogger/vlogger, an at-home chef, or anyone that capture food. They could record and express their food art in whichever ways under the hashtag #foodofindia
Takeaway and Challenges
Chandni: What were some takeaways from this project?
Kruti: Food is a category that we all love and drool over, but food related content only works well when it's presented in a right way, and when adapted correctly to the format of its publishing platform. On TikTok, where videos produce larger impact and when uploaded in vertical formats and for 15-2 seconds long, you need to think: what can you possibly do in 15 seconds on TikTok that a person would want to watch your videos in loops? So, one of the biggest takeaway from this project was learning how food content works across different media platforms, and how to make it work successful on my own platform i.e. TikTok.
Chandni: What was the biggest challenge you faced?
Kruti: The difference in the content format of TV and the TikTok app was the biggest challenge. Since, we were trying to communicate the same campaign message across both these different platforms, we also had to adapt and design the content in a way that could appeal the different audiences and drive them to participate in the #FoodOfIndia campaign on TikTok.
Bringing it all together
Chandni: Ok Kruti, final and most important question. Where can we see the content that has been created with FoodFood?
Kruti: [Haha] On TikTok! FoodFood has their own verified page with all the chef and creator videos. You can check it out there! They have a very good presence.
Chandni: Thank you so much Kruti for your time and providing us with such great insight on what goes on behind the scenes! It's definitely hard work, but sounds fun and delicious.
