"Too Good To Go" Marketing Manager Yann Gurtner: "Saving food should become part of everyday life".
One third of all food produced is wasted. "Too Good To Go" wants to get everyone involved in the fight against food waste. Currently, the company is active in 16 countries, since 2018 also in Switzerland - where a new campaign was launched a few weeks ago, created by Pam Advertising. A conversation with Marketing Manager Yann Gurtner.
Yann Gurtner, what is the guiding idea behind the current Campaign?
Food waste has a strong negative impact on our environment. It accounts for about 8 percent of global greenhouse gases - contributing to the climate crisis. At Too Good To Go, we want to change that. Our mission is to empower and inspire everyone to fight food waste. With our new advertising campaign, we want to remind the Swiss population once again that we are all part of the solution and encourage them to take action and use the Too Good To Go app.
What hurdles does advertising have to overcome to get people to use Too Good To Go?
In Switzerland, we will soon have 1.5 million registered users. With our latest advertising campaign, we not only want to convince more people to download the app, but also ensure that existing and new users actively need the app. We want to stay in people's minds and anchor our messages so that saving food with Too Good To Go becomes everyday life. Together, we can ensure that less food is wasted and that the resources of our environment are conserved. Not only do we run the app, but we also invest heavily in raising awareness about food waste. Many people in Switzerland don't know that - yet! We raise awareness of the issue every day, run marketing campaigns or launch initiatives such as the Waste Warrior Brands (WAW Brands) Initiative or the initiative "Often good for longer". We work with companies, associations and other institutions from society, politics and business and join forces in the fight against food waste. Only together can we really make a difference.
Consuming "leftovers" is perhaps frowned upon in affluent Switzerland - are there prejudices or concerns about the quality and freshness of the goods?
Our partner farms ensure that the quality of the products in the so-called surprise packets is guaranteed. These contain fresh food that is left over and should be eaten soon, or packaged products that may soon reach the best-before date but are still good and tasty.
Purpose versus performance marketing: If you have such a strong purpose as Too Good To Go, do you automatically gear your campaigns more towards it - communicating the meaning and hoping that people share it - or do you also focus more on performance KPIs? OOH as a leading medium speaks more for the former...
We pursue a corporate mindset that takes the common good into account - this is also how we position ourselves in public. That doesn't mean we don't measure our performance in numbers. For example, we have set clear goals for our current advertising campaign, which we also measure against KPIs. Purpose and performance marketing are not mutually exclusive - in the case of Too Good To Go, the approaches complement each other.
How have user numbers developed in recent years?
Too Good To Go has been present in Switzerland for about three years. Every day, we win new companies and consumers in the fight against food waste. The user figures also speak for themselves: while our app had a total of 650,000 registered users at the end of the 2019 financial year, this figure had already risen by 70 percent to 1.1 million by the end of the 2020 financial year. Today, we already have 1.4 million registered users. We are very pleased with this development.
How many companies are participating?
With our app, we offer bakeries, restaurants, supermarkets and other businesses a simple solution for reducing food waste. The result is a win-win-win situation: users get delicious food at a reduced price, partner businesses attract new customers and generate additional revenue - and environmental resources are conserved. We now have more than 4,800 partner businesses on the app, including bakeries, restaurants, supermarkets, hotels, manufacturers and other companies.
Where do you want to go? Does this meet your expectations?
In Switzerland, we are currently focusing primarily on expanding our offering in all regions to ensure nationwide coverage and save even more food from going to waste together! To get closer to our vision of a planet without food waste, we are also continuously expanding our presence globally. Last year, Too Good To Go ventured across the pond and expanded into the U.S. and, more recently, Canada. We are also active in more and more countries in Europe.
The current campaign is aimed at consumers, app users - is there also a campaign planned to attract other food suppliers, restaurants and stores?
We are winning companies every day in the fight against food waste. What makes us very happy is that a third of them approach us proactively. We approach the remaining two-thirds, both with B2B marketing and through sales measures. A major campaign for partner companies is not currently planned.
More information at Toogoodtogo.ch.
