In the spotlight:
"Lost the Pot"
2024 Gold & Silver Effie
Effie is about awarding ideas that work, educating about effective marketing and showcasing the best work to enhance learning in our industry.
CAMPAIGN NAME
Lost the Pot
CATEGORIES
2024 Best of Europe: Food & Beverage
CLIENT
UNILEVER
LEAD AGENCY
U-Studio/OLIVER
CAMPAIGN DESCRIPTION
Pot Noodle’s attempt to launch a new format—Lost the Pot—was unsuccessful in 2020, with consumers vocally rejecting the poor taste. In 2022, with a new and improved recipe but a limited budget, the brand embraced a radical strategy: tell the truth. The campaign leaned into blunt British humor and making fun of itself, launching with the line “No longer crap... Now with flavour.” This bold honesty ignited social media, rebuilt trust, and reignited consumer interest—delivering record-breaking engagement and a dramatic turnaround in sales and market share.
THE CHALLENGE
After a disastrous first launch in 2021, Lost the Pot had a reputation problem: people had tried it, hated it, and weren’t shy about saying so. With brutal reviews and the threat of being pulled from major retailers, the brand faced a critical crossroad. There was no budget for a rebrand, no room to switch audiences, and no money to drown the market in ads. The challenge was clear and brutal: convince the same disappointed customers to give the product a second chance—this time, with no tricks, just honesty and humour.
STRATEGIC APPROACH AND EXECUTION
The team chose honesty as their weapon. The campaign began with a public apology via social media, starring a fictional “Head of Workplace Flavour Disasters.” Humorous fake emails, and absurd focus group clips all carried the same message: Lost the Pot had fixed its flavour fail. With bold lines like “No longer crap,” the campaign ran across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, backed by smart community management and paid boosts for high-performing posts. The brutally honest, culturally tuned storytelling not only resonated—it drove results, saving the product and making it a success story.
Clear evidence of success:
- +38% increase in block noodle market share at Asda
- +21% rise in household penetration (Kantar)
- 2.6:1 incremental revenue ROI (Unilever)
RESULTS
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The campaign reversed decline, driving a 38% market share increase in Asda’s block noodle category—surpassing the two-year target in just months.
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Sales more than doubled post-launch, with an average incremental revenue of £109K per month, achieving the year-one target in half the time.
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Household penetration jumped by 21% (Kantar), while social engagement soared—1.5 million organic reach and a 22.7% engagement rate, over 7x the benchmark.
WHY A DOUBLE GOLDEN & SILVER EFFIE? Here's what the jurors said.
