"‘Love At First Taste’ takes its inspiration from older campaigns, notably 2014’s ‘First Kiss,’ but this doesn’t stop it feeling fresh"
9/10
The old saying goes that the fastest way to a person’s heart is through their stomach, but is this really the case?
In an age when dating websites and apps can successfully match people along lines of mutual attraction, preferred sports team or favourite segment of Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’, doesn’t preparing a rich spag bol or vegan soufflé to win a lover’s affections seem terribly analogue?
Knorr disagrees, and they’re putting their adspend where their mouth is. The brand, best known for producing stocks, sauces and other theoretical romance-enablers, has devised a rather ingenious scheme for its latest spot ‘#LoveAtFirstTaste’.
Bringing together a random assortment of conventionally-attractive single people, the brand asked them how they would define love. One participant says "passion", another admits "agony", while the final person says, "That thing people sing about all the time". A fairly lovelorn bunch, then.
The spice of life
Knorr’s definition of love is a whole lot simpler, and basically comes down to ‘liking the same food’. This isn’t a terrible assumption and, with this in mind, Knorr’s stock-based cupids set about pairing romantics off in terms of favourite foods. Spicy with spicy, meaty with meaty, and so on, until each pair are sitting down to see whether you can find love at first taste.
This isn’t the first time that Knorr has used food to try to say something grander about humanity. This time last last year, we discussed the brand’s ‘Flavour of Home’, which explored family relationships through the prism of a young Arctic research assistant reminiscing about her life at home thanks to her mother’s cooking.
If that sounds a lot more complex (not to mention, expensive) than putting six strangers in a room and having them share a meal, then you’d be right. But ‘Flavour of Home’was a very different kettle of fish, heavily inspired by the early 2015 ad trend of creating documentary spots.
First Kiss
‘Love At First Taste’ takes its inspiration from older campaigns, notably 2014’s ‘First Kiss,’ but this doesn’t stop it feeling fresh. In fact, Knorr went so far as to hire Tatia Pilieva, the director of ‘First Kiss’, to helm this spot.
Featuring all the characteristic awkwardness and sweetness of the ‘two-strangers come-together-to-do-X’ genre, Knorr manages to make its premise believable and charming. This is partly thanks to the twist in ‘Love At First Taste’ which asks these potential lovebirds to share their favourite meal - but only by feeding each other. While this sounds like a recipe (yes, another food pun) for the most cringeworthy date imaginable, it’s a surprisingly compelling hook.
Granted - not many brands would advertise their wares by filming strangers pushing halloumi burgers into each other’s mouths, but Knorr does not shy away from earnestness. Teamed up with agency MullenLowe, the brand’s attempt to chase the magic of ‘First Kiss’ is not such a madcap idea.
After all, that video (semi-secretly a campaign for fashion brand Wren) has been seen over 100,000,000 times. With over 3 million views since its release earlier this week, Knorr’s spot has certainly captured some of the same giddy romanticism that made ‘First Kiss’ such a hit.
So we’ll have to wait and see how far the new campaign goes. In the meantime, Knorr’s mission to make people fall in love with food (and each other) is off to a delectable start.