In an ingenious move, food delivery service Grubhub has partnered up with TV sensation MasterChef to open a “virtual restaurant” where “fans can order some of the same dishes they’ve seen during the series”.
The project has been dubbed “MasterChef Table” and it will launch in roughly 20 markets around the US — including Boston, Chicago, New York City, Washington D.C., and more. Along with offering its customers access to the MasterChef menu, the brand will also “launch a multi-episode integration into the reality show, digital content and a national ad campaign on Fox.”
Source: Adweek
But that’s not all — Grubhub will also run a consumer sweepstake where the winners will get a “pop-up experience, complete with maître’d, at their homes.” What’s on the menu, you ask? Well, it will feature well-loved dishes from MasterChef alums — such as Gerron Hurt’s Southern horsey slaw and Nashville hot shrimp tacos and Kelsey Murphy’s spicy maple bacon fried chicken sandwich.
This campaign is not only a great way for Grubhub to gain publicity and align itself with an exciting, dynamic brand like MasterChef — it’s also a way for the food delivery service to get “a leg up in uniqueness” within its “intensely competitive” market.
The Food Delivery Market Is Thriving — But Verging On Overcrowded
Food delivery services are a dime a dozen these days. From Doordash to Delivery Hero, consumers have plenty of options to choose from. And within the “food to your door” realm, there are also rivals like meal kit delivery brands Hello Fresh and Marley Spoon to contend with.
A good deal of the food delivery industry’s rapid growth can be attributed to the recent pandemic, which changed almost everything about the way people lived. One of the biggest changes was the inability of consumers to frequent restaurants.
However, people still, understandably, wanted access to high-quality food with little hassle. And though food delivery services have existed for years, 2020-2021 was their time to truly shine.
More and more food delivery companies popped up — and what was once a relatively competitive industry became cutthroat. Standing out from the crowd became harder and harder, as almost all brands in this market were offering the same things: fast delivery, delicious meals from your favorite restaurants, and promo codes.
Giant of the industry Doordash took a unique approach — it utilized deep audience segmentation, offered additional value to restaurant partners via its customer insights app, and focused on areas with less competition.
With this strategy, Doordash was able to grow at an incredible rate and continues to be successful even as the pandemic is winding down.
In a similar way, Grubhub seems to have found its unique angle through its recent partnership with MasterChef — which, according to the brand’s Vice President of Diner Acquisition, Marnie Boyer, “provides differentiation through chef-inspired recipes with a twist on American comfort foods.”
And in order to thrive in an increasingly overcrowded market like food delivery, brands will need to follow Grubhub’s lead and find ways to differentiate themselves from their rivals. One way to do so is to lean into consumer insights gathered via brand monitoring software — aka figure out what your ideal customers want from your brand.
Discover how your target audiences perceive your brand — what they associate it with and how it compares to its competitors. With this knowledge at hand, you can more easily zero in on a strategy that should allow your brand to stand out from the crowd.
