MANILA, Philippines—The leading Filipino Superapp Grab Philippines, through its food delivery platform GrabFood, wins two major awards at the second annual Marketing Excellence Awards. GrabFood won first place in the categories of Excellence in TV/Video Advertising and Excellence in Influencer/KOLs Marketing for the launch of its Indie Eats program, which featured TikTok superstar Sassa Gurl and leading food content creator Erwan Heusaff.
Grab Philippines launched the GrabFood Indie Eats program in March 2022, with the goal of amplifying the presence of homegrown small food businesses on the platform. To assist small-scale businesses operating on limited ad budgets, the leading superapp has increased its evangelization of unexpected finds from non-major food brands.
Image courtesy of Grab Philippines
“Unexpected’ was our jumping off point in coming up with our campaign with Erwan and Sassa. We believe that the duo’s unexpected and juxtaposed personas in a mukbang of Indie Eats products encapsulated the sense of surprise that we were aiming for,” shares Grab Philippines Head of Integrated Marketing Services Gretchen Que.
Because of the two hosts’ contrasting personalities, Erwan Heusaff and Sassa Gurl’s candid and funny banter during their mukbang session garnered significant positive sentiment and engagement online.
Que also emphasized that Sassa’s relatability, combined with Heussaff’s aspirational and subject-matter perspective, resonated well with the online audience. Following the success of the pilot, the unexpected duo produced a follow-up episode with fitness and lifestyle influencer Nico Bolzico.
The two-part mukbang series received 32 million online impressions and was viewed by 21 million people. Its popularity and high engagement rate of 10% propelled the series to the 27th position on YouTube’s trending list. The series’ virality was also noticed by mainstream media, earning the brand a Php 116-million media value for the Indie Eats program.
The series’ online engagement resulted in a 65 percent category uplift, which benefited Indie Eats partner merchants, who saw a 70 percent increase in orders in the period following the series’ launch.
“Grab Philippines is aggressive in ensuring that our platform promotes viability for all local entrepreneurs. We hope that this recognition from Marketing Excellence Awards reassures our current merchant partners and all aspiring ones that Grab is with them every step of the way to ascertain that they win with us – always,” Que furthers.
The Grab Philippines team behind the award-winning mukbang video series featuring Heussaf and Sassa is composed of Jewelyn Oliveros and JD Fajardo from socials; Ogy Yap and DJ Chatto from creatives; Arvi Lopez from PR; and Gretchen Que, Janvier Bastian, Ian Velasco, and J-Anne Aruta from marketing.
The Marketing Excellence Awards are designed to celebrate and recognize the Philippines’ outstanding marketing campaigns. It is the premier platform for marketers to showcase their creative excellence, successful strategies and effective delivery.
The award-giving body is spearheaded by Marketing Interactive, an Asian-based news organization covering notable stories on Asian advertising, marketing, and media efforts. An independent judging panel of high-calibre, senior industry experts from reputable brands selected the 2022 champions.
Check out the full list of winners here and for more information about the latest edition of the Marketing Excellence Awards, click here.