Yes Chef

Written By Ben Thompson

A RECENT CULTURAL BRAND STRATEGY FOR OYA KITCHENS

 

About Oya Kitchens:

Oya Kitchens sources, markets, manages and licences Kitchen spaces across London, offering a new solution for discovering residencies, dark kitchens, and production units with flexible rates. 

Aiming to eliminate lengthy commercial leases and expensive overheads that can often stifle business growth, Oya Kitchens uniquely caters to the needs of both property owners and food vendors, helping them manage payments, deposits, licensing and insurance processes. 

Their mission is to enable food vendors to thrive by assisting them in discovering the perfect location for their business. 

Strategy Goals:

Within the cultural brand strategy for Oya Kitchens, our goals included: 

  1. Analysing potential customer types and their motivations to inform targeted copy suited to these customer personas. 

  2. Reviewing connected cultures surrounding the hospitality industry across language and media to inform paid media ad creative across graphic design and video briefs.

  3. Exploring industry-related social trends, high-performing content types, related media outlets and suited collaborators to inform social media content, social trendjacking and strategic brand partnerships. 

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Customer Personas

Within this section, we explore potential customer personas for Oya Kitchens by identifying individual reasons for using the services. We then explore core motivators for each persona in relation to Oya’s services and business attributes. 


Following this, we assign targeted copy variations to each persona with the aim of resonating with these core motivators. These variations then provide targeted copy for paid media advertising.

The Aspiring Entrepreneur 

Core Motivators: 

  • Opportunity

  • Flexibility

  • Passion

  • Growth

Targeted Copy Examples: 

  • Develop your passion with flexible dark kitchens, production units and residencies. 

  • Explore new opportunities with flexible dark kitchens, production units and residencies.

The Business Expander 

Core Motivators: 

  • Scalability

  • Flexibility

  • Quality 

  • Growth

Targeted Copy Examples: 

  • Scale confidently with flexible dark kitchens, production units and residencies. 

  • Grow your business with high-quality dark kitchens, production units and residencies.

The Opportunist 

 Core Motivators: 

  • Opportunity

  • Flexibility

  • Efficiency 

  • Speed

Targeted Copy Examples: 

  • Pursue new opportunities with flexible dark kitchens, production units and residencies.

  • Pursue your next project with ease via our range of flexible dark kitchens, production units and residencies.


The Location Scout

Core Motivators: 

  • Location

  • Flexibility

  • Speed 

  • Ease

Targeted Copy Examples: 

  • Discover the perfect kitchen location with ease via our range of dark kitchens and production units.

  • Dark kitchen and production unit locations, available when you need them.


The Content Creator

Core Motivators: 

  • Location

  • Flexibility

  • Aesthetic 

  • Ease

Targeted Copy Examples: 

  • The perfect locations for your kitchen content, with a range of flexible dark kitchens and production units. 

  • Find a stunning new home for your kitchen content, via our range of flexible dark kitchens and production units.

Cultural Considerations - Language:

Here we review language used within or related to the hospitality industry that can then inform paid media ad creative.

  • Chef: A term of respect when referring to a cook - Yes Cheff, No Chef “It’s our thing.” - Marco Pierre White

  • Service: Referring to a period in which food is served.  “Service is service.” - Marco Pierre White

  • AFD: To work all fucking day.

  • Behind: When someone is passing behind you in a kitchen. 

  • All Day: The amount of food that needs to be made (in total). 

  • Dead Plate: Food that can’t be served.

  • Dying on the Pass: Food left to go cold on the area where dishes are plated.

  • Fire: To start cooking a dish.

  • Flash It: To cook something quickly.

  • In the Weeds: To be busier than you’d like to be.

  • Kill It: To cook something extremely well done.

  • On Deck: What food is coming up next.

  • On the Fly: Needing to be done quickly.

  • On the Line: To be currently cooking on the line.

  • Run the Dish: Take the plate to the customer. 

  • Running the Pass: the person in charge of letting others know about the orders going in and out.

  • When’s it Out: How many minutes until the dish is ready to plate.

  • Turn Up the Heat: Leveling up, going to the next stage - Turn up the heat on your business.

  • Boiling Point: To reach a heightened level of stress.

  • Don’t Over-cook It: To overdo or overthink something. 

  • Kitchen Nightmare: Popularised by the Gordon Ramsy TV show, the phrase explains a bad kitchen experience.

“It’s our thing.” - Marco Pierre White

Cultural Considerations - Media: 

Here we review media within or related to the hospitality industry that can then inform social media content strategies and further creative.

Media: Film & Television 

  • The Bear: A US drama starring Jeremy Allen White.

  • Boiling Point: A British drama starring Stephen Graham.

  • The Menu: A restaurant-based thriller starring Ralph Fiennes.

  • Burnt: A chef-based drama starring Bradley Cooper.

  • Chef: A feel-good comedy drama starring Jon Favreau. 

  • Gordon, Gino & Fred: Popular UK television programme.

  • Kitchen Nightmares: Popular UK / US television programme.

  • The Great British Bake Off: Popular UK television programme.

Media: Youtube & Social

This list could be endless, so here are a few of our favourites...

  • Munchies: Vice’s international food series.

  • F*ck That's Delicious: Action Bronon’s international food adventures.

  • Matty Matheson: Media personality and actor Matty Matheson’s comedic cooking channel. 

  • Uncle Rodger: Comedic social commentary on Asian cooking - UK-based.

  • Big Has: Cooking and Food YouTuber - UK based.

  • Eddie Abbew: Viral no bullshit food health influencer - UK based.

Media: Social Trends

  • Cooking

  • Food & Restaurant Reviews

  • Food AMSR

  • Cooking Commentary 

  • Memes Surrounding Popular Media

  • Healthy Food Suggestions 

  • Science-backed Food & Wellbeing

Creative Concepts: 

Based on previous customer personas and cultural considerations we developed the following first-phase design concepts and video brief for paid media advertising.

Printed Media Concept 1 - Amplified Culture

Social Media Concepts - Amplified Culture

Social Media Concepts - Amplified Culture

Video Brief: 

Scene 1:

A small, crapped, busy kitchen, chefs cooking, battling cheques and feeling the pressure at the peak of service, one moves behind the other “Behind” the two chefs collide spilling food onto the floor. 

  • Screen to black: Graphic text and narrator    

“Don’t have a kitchen nightmare, expand your business with a high-quality dark kitchen in just a few clicks”. 

Scene 2:

Chef’s cooking stress-free in a pristine spacious kitchen. 

  • Screen to black: Graphic text and narrator  

“Yes Chef, it really is that easy.” 

Social CTA:

Click / swipe up to find your perfect kitchen.

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Strategic Partnership Suggestions

Within this section, we suggested strategic partnership examples for Oya Kitchens considering collaborative content, media partnerships and influencer campaigns.

Industry:

Develop strategic partnerships with London-based catering suppliers and independent brands offering product shoot locations in return for collaborative content. 

Examples:

  • Katto Knives 

  • Service Works London 


Media:

Pitch a collaborative content series to key industry media i.e inside London’s Dark Kitchens - How they are influencing the future of the food industry. Developing a recent LinkedIn article into a short format video series for social media platforms.

Media Partner Examples:

  • The Caterer

  • Hospitality Magazine

  • Insider Food

  • Mob

Influencers:

Develop 2-3 annual content partnerships with London-based food influencers to generate a consistent content series around cooking and or food-tasting to be used across Oya’s socials - specifically Instagram, TikTok and Youtube Shorts.  

 Find 2-3 localised influencers that are aligned with existing brand values, have a consistent output and a growing audience.  

Depending on the available budget, consider well-renowned creators to develop these partnerships with.

Social Media Content Suggestions

Here we explored a series of social media content for Oya Kitchens based on related media and high-performing content types within their industry.

Short Reads: 

  • Industry trends (What you need to know about Neo-nordic cuisine) 

  • Supplier trends (Service Works London - The chef ware brand infiltrating fashion)

  • Resident highlights (Meet the people/businesses using Oya)

  • Our journey (Regular updates on the business journey) 

Video: 

  • Cooking content series (ideally in partnership with a selected influencer) 

  • Food-tasting content series (ideally in partnership with a selected influencer) 

  • Our journey (short format video highlighting the journey of Oya Kitchens and its founders)  

  • Tagline creative / ads (short format video utilising previously outlined creative concepts)

Photo:

  • Strategic brand partner photoshoots 

  • Food photos (from current Oya residents) 

  • Current residents in action 

Graphic / Photo Carousels:

  • Highlighting current residents via image and graphic carousels 

  • Recipies from current residents 

  • The benefits of using a dark kitchen

Social Trendjacking

Providing an example of social trends and popular culture in-line with the audience of Oya kitchens. 

Example - The Bear:

Using the hit US drama The Bear as an example, which received glowing reviews, millions of worldwide viewers, trended on social media and inspired 1000 of chef-related memes. 

“Chef speak is taking over Twitter” - Elite Daily 

“A popular meme trend from The Bear turned everyday people into three-star Michelin chefs” - Screenrant

With Season 3 of The Bear confirmed for production with an estimated release date of June 2024, exploring content in-line with trending pop culture topics provides an opportunity to further resonate with related audience cultures. 

Content Concepts:

  • Relevant memes 

  • Short Reads: Why the BOC details in The Bear make the show incredible 


Many other examples of this can be found around popular media and media personalities. 

As an example, ‘Gordon Ramsay Memes’ generates 6,190,000 results on Google.

Summary

By analysing audience types and their possible motivations we are able to consider both copy and creative variations most suited to these personas. 

Through reviewing the language used by Chefs within the hospitality industry and related media, we can develop creative concepts that utilise language most likely to resonate with them, in addition to creating relatable video content for paid media campaigns. 

Finally, via the analysis of industry-related social trends, high-performing content types, related media outlets and suited collaborators, we can develop suggestions for social media content and content collaborations most likely to engage and grow audiences.

Ben Thompson