Food Porn Index
Food Porn Index committed to making vegetables look a little sexier. A real-time index that tracked 243.5 million hashtags to see how the internet really eats.
"Food porn" is the internet's favourite genre. A billion glistening burgers, molten cookies and cheese pulls, posted and adored every day. Almost none of it is a vegetable.
For Bolthouse Farms, we built a live index that scanned social media in real time and sorted the world's food photos into indulgent versus fresh. A mirror held up to how we eat online. And an open dare to tip the balance back toward produce.
Overview
The partnership
A real-time social experiment for Bolthouse Farms. It turned the internet's obsession with food porn into a nudge toward fruit and veg.
Define
The strategy was a simple provocation: if a doughnut gets to be "food porn," why can't a carrot? We stopped selling produce as the healthy choice and started selling it as the crave-worthy one. Beautiful, bold, and built to be posted.
The idea
Make a vegetable the most tempting thing on the feed.
Create
A live website scored food hashtags the moment they were posted, revealing the real-time ratio of indulgence to freshness. It challenged everyone watching to post their own produce and move the number. The site, the film and the social play all ran off a single, always-updating index.
We didn't want people to eat their vegetables. We wanted them to want their vegetables. The index made produce feel like something worth showing off.
Commit
The index ran live, updating with every post. As people shared their salads, smoothie bowls and market hauls, the number moved. And a produce company became, briefly, the most talked-about thing in food.
The result
243.5 million hashtags analysed. Coverage everywhere from The New York Times to Fast Company. And a generation of eaters invited to see a vegetable the way they'd always seen dessert. As something worth craving, and worth sharing.
The craft
A live data engine, a real-time site, a launch film and a social toolkit. One idea running across every surface, updating by the second.
Press & recognition for the Food Porn Index
The New York Times
Advertising column
"Promoting health with enticing photos of fruits and vegetables"
The Washington Post
Arts & Entertainment
"This is the internet's favorite food"
Los Angeles Times
Daily Dish
"The Food Porn Index tracks Twitter and Instagram"
Fast Company
Most Innovative
"Making vegetables look a little sexier"
FWA
Site of the Day
Winner
The Webby Awards
Social
Best Use of Social Media
Nominee