Case Myllyn Paras

The aim of the campaign was to inspire consumers to use Myllyn Paras puff pastry for a wide range of treats well before Christmas. The main target group was 25–55-year-old people interested in cooking and baking who make the daily buying decisions, and the second target group was families.

The campaign was run from October to November 2020. With it, Myllyn Paras wanted to remind consumers that baking things for Christmas is an enjoyable tradition that could still be observed despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.

The core of the campaign consisted of influencer cooperation, a competition on meilläkotona.fi to activate consumers, and a powerful display campaign that used channels able to reach the target group.

The passionate master baker behind the popular blog Annin Uunissa, Anni Paakkunainen, gave her face to the campaign. She used Myllyn Paras puff pastry to create three new recipes that inspired bakers to use this pastry for various types of sweet and savoury treats.

Meilläkotona.fi launched a campaign page, Christmas Every Day, which included a competition to activate the audience. The visitors could vote for their favourite out of the three pastry recipes.

Traffic to the competition was directed from the meilläkotona.fi newsletter, Maku brand’s Instagram account and Annin Uunissa Instagram account, as well as with a display campaign. Paakkunainen also gave her face to the campaign’s landing page ad.

When the competition ended, Paakkunainen announced the winning recipe in her blog – the pastry cones. The social media audience went wild, and the recipe became a phenomenon that even caught the attention of the media. For example, the Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat ran a story of the hit recipe and interviewed Anni Paakkunainen.

The campaign was a huge success. The pastry cone recipe that had been invented for Myllyn Paras was amongst the top 10 most clicked recipes at Annin Uunissa in 2020. The increased interest in baking pastries was also evident in people’s Google searches: in December 2020, the pastry cones jumped from their previous level 0 to over 1,300 searches.

The native article published on meilläkotona.fi had over 22,000 unique readers, and 2,743 people took part in the poll. Anni Paakkunainen’s Instagram posts reached a total of 110,600 people, and the engagement rate was 9.22%. This high level of commitment speaks of a genuine and interactive connection between the influencer and her community.

According to the campaign study, the native article and the display campaign were successful in creating a positive image of Myllyn Paras and had a positive impact on people’s interest in becoming familiar with the product and buying it.

‘The campaign’s timing was brilliant, coinciding with the period when people were busy planning their Christmas. Anni’s three recipes attracted a lot of attention, particularly the cone, which is a combination of something old and something completely new. No wonder that it went viral!’ says marketing director Johanna Kemppinen from Myllyn Paras.