Phạm TúTo gain a competitive advantage in the food industry, many brands have thought about using KOLs for promotion. So with different product and service characteristics, how are the requirements when working with KOLs different?
1. Restaurants, eateries.
The first requirement for promoting any product is that the marketer must identify the target customer group. In Influencer Marketing, this helps to select KOLs whose readership matches the target audience of the product.
Using KOLs for the restaurant sector, in addition to the requirement of finding KOLs with the right readership, there are many other factors. KOLs need to build content that shows the style of the restaurant, whether it is popular, reasonably priced or luxurious and classy. The design, location of the restaurant, the taste and ingredients of the dish must also be fully expressed in the review.
To meet these factors, the appropriate KOL group must be people with high aesthetics such as Food Photographer, Food Stylist, Travel blogger, Food Reviewer. They may not be professional cooks but have the ability to express the characteristics of the restaurant through images, videos and convey the beauty of the dish.
2. Kitchen utensils, equipment and processing ingredients.
Uses, features and prices are the first factors that need to be emphasized in reviews of kitchen utensils. To demonstrate that, KOLs need to be people who clearly understand the uses of these utensils in the kitchen and in food preparation. The applications and highlights of the product under the eyes of a kitchen expert will create more trust with consumers than other food reviewers.
The most typical example in this field is the Facebook channel Esheep Kitchen of chef Phan Anh with more than 250k likes. When reviewing the necessary equipment in your kitchen, Phan Anh and her team always meticulously build content to clearly describe the equipment’s uses for cooking. As someone with good knowledge and background in cuisine, her shares receive good feedback from female readers, aged 24 – 40, who like to cook or do housework. That is also the target audience that kitchen equipment brands pursue.
Similarly, for the group of products that are processed ingredients, chefs and culinary experts will have a clearer analysis of the product’s ingredients and uses.
Helen Le is someone who has just had a proud journey when being invited to attend Google Cook Off in Singapore. With the dream of bringing Vietnamese cuisine to the world, she has constantly researched to discover delicious and new dishes. Helen’s Youtube channel has nearly half a million subscribers, she is also the main content creator for the culinary website of Da Nang: danangcuisine.com. The voice of an expert like Helen will have more weight than other Reviewers when she suggests good ingredients for dishes, how to prepare those ingredients.
3. Services related to cuisine.
Other products include culinary apps (Loki, Foody…), or tourist destinations, hotels, local culinary tours. The characteristic of this product group is that it is more entertaining than purely culinary. Brands should collaborate with KOLs who can be flexible in content creation, especially those who have a voice not only in the culinary field but also in travel and lifestyle.
Ninh Tito is not only a blogger but also a youtube creator with more than 139k followers on the topic of food, travel, but also gathers a group of friends who are just as hot as him and often experience services together across the country. The series of reviews by him and his group of friends about Premier Village Danang Hotel recently received very positive interactions from young readers aged 18-25, who love to gather and travel with friends.
This article is for reference only for general requirements of food products. To go deeper into specific requirements/briefs of brands, it is difficult to frame them with any certain standards. In fact, to choose KOLs that are suitable for product characteristics, many different factors and perspectives must be considered such as region, user behavior, product characteristics, and competitor brands.
