Just Eat Takeaway.com

Building brand love with a social-first docuseries

Just Eat Takeaway.com (JET) is a leading multinational, online food and convenience ordering and delivery company that connects hungry customers with thousands of delicious restaurants.

From fast-casual chains to unique holes in the wall, JET is the ultimate platform to find favourite comfort dishes and discover new culinary delights. But not everyone knows about its vast range of locally-loved offerings.

To address this, DEPT® and JET launched a social-first, branded content docuseries that garnered more than 11 million views of its first three episodes, a 4% favourability increase and a 136% order boost.

More menus than meets the eye

As lead digital agency, DEPT® has helped JET launch several iconic campaigns showcasing its delicious offerings and prominent cultural influence.

But while JET is famed for its celeb-fronted campaigns, cementing the brand as the food delivery service to satisfy all cravings takes more than a famous face.

It’s the range and quality of food available that customers keep coming back for, and in the face of fierce competition; JET had a perception problem.

The brand was largely seen as a ‘traditional’ weekend takeaway option, and needed to open people up to new ordering moments throughout the week.

JET needed a strategy to showcase and celebrate the breadth of foodie hotspots available on the marketplace; the ‘local heroes’ that the company was built on, that are the backbone of its business to this day.

These small, typical independently run restaurants have major influence in their communities, and it was our belief that elevating these stories would drive local order volume, helping to fight off competition, as well as help position JET as the food ordering service to satisfy any craving.

Together, we set off on a culinary journey to reconnect the brand with its audience of restaurants and consumers in an authentic and endearing way.

Highlighting the hottest spots in town

To help local foodies fall in love with JET and all that it offers, we needed to develop a campaign that appealed to more than just consumers’ taste buds, but their hearts and souls.

Why? Because delicious food isn’t just about the ingredients, it’s about the love, skill, experience, and passion that goes into creating an amazing dish.

Enter, Home of the Hotspots. A social-first branded content docuseries revealing the stories of the unsung heroes cooking up a storm across the UK.

The creative concept is a multi-part documentary-style series that goes on a taste tour of the UK. The social-first branded content celebrates JET as the destination for the hottest meal ticket in every city and highlights the range of locally-loved spots across the UK.

When we were looking at what made these ‘local heroes’ special, one thing became clear and one insight we worked off is this idea that: food made with love and passion hits differently.

Because food is deeply personal… it’s not simply what you put on the end of your fork. It’s the emotion, energy and people that surround it. We wanted to capture that essence in our campaign.

Inspired by popular food-centric shows like The Bear, this short-form series reveals the stories behind the sizzle, spotlighting incredible chefs, bakers, baristas, and more cooking up a storm across the UK.

Each episode of Home of the Hotspots celebrates the culinary creations that make various restaurants unique.

With a neuroscience-led food strategy at its core and fronted by known foodies, the campaign features delicious close-ups of textures and ingredients, digs into the inspiration behind the dishes, and, of course, pays homage to the moment of pure bliss after the first bite.

Appealing to the heart, soul and stomach

The Home of the Hotspots campaign strategy includes rolling out a new episode each month, with content across YouTube, TikTok, and Meta.

In the first episode, Home of the Hotspots takes foodies to Northern Soul, a Manchester-based haven for all things grilled cheese. Episode two stays in the area, entering the heart of Manchester’s award-winning Arndale Food Market, to visit Rack. Here, viewers are treated to indulgent visuals of a crave-able, meaty Mexican melt with consommé broth.

Episode three celebrates Pride Month with a trip to Macclesfield-based Yas Bean, a small, independent, queer-owned coffee shop serving luscious coffees and baked goods.

Great British Bake Off lovers get to see a fan-favourite finalist Sandro Farmhouse go behind the scenes of the fabulous and colourful shop, learn the owners’ story, and try a variety of treats worthy of a Paul Hollywood handshake.

11.2 M

unique users reached
in five weeks

69%

YouTube skippable completion rate
(benchmark 65%)

60s

average watch time
(benchmark: 10s)

Coming back for more

Even with just three of several episodes rolled out so far, Home of the Hotspots has captured the attention (and appetite) of the UK’s food lovers.

The celebratory storytelling and docu-style cinematography, infused with the joy of Just Eat, has seen particular success on YouTube. Episode one got more than one million views in its first few days of launching, and the series (so far) has surpassed 11 million views.

We also achieved a 60” watch time of a 90” ad, where YouTube typically sees a 10-15” range. While a Meta brand lift study has shown an initial four-point uplift in favourability.

All of which has contributed to a 136% order increase for the restaurants featured.

With at least six more episodes to come, JET and DEPT® will continue to take a bite out of the UK’s food scene—one hotspot at a time.