Appreciating Foodpanda’s elegance in marketing mastery in their latest campaign

Foodpanda Unveils Brand Ambassador to Champion Empowerment and Sustainability

Pau- Pau, foodpanda’s new brand ambassador
Source: Foodpanda Hong Kong Facebook

Let’s begin with foodpanda’s latest branding campaign

Ready to meet your next favourite food bestie?
Source: Foodpanda Philippines Facebook

To kickstart 2022, Foodpanda introduced Pau-Pau, a fresh face for the brand to celebrate its 10th anniversary as the pioneering food and grocery delivery platform in Asia. Pau-Pau is a pink panda that is described as fun- loving and free-spirited and has its own language and story. Pau-Pau is a digital marketing brand ambassador, championing sustainability, empowerment, and belief in living life on one’s own terms across the region.

What is a buzzword?

Businesses could not operate without buzzwords.

A buzzword is a word or phrase that becomes trendy for a period of time. Buzzwords often come from technical jargons, then shifted from its complex original meaning and repackaged in a simpler and more fashionable way. Examples of common social media marketing buzzwords include artificial intelligence, gamification, self-care, and – you guessed it – sustainability.

Buzzwords are important in digital marketing – it catches attention, it’s what consumers are looking for, and it’s quickly understood by consumers. That’s why the digital marketing industry is saturated with buzzwords. It works!

Buzzwords aren’t necessarily bad,
they are useful and effective, that is, if you
intend to honour your claims.

As the landscape changes, the digital marketing industry’s vocabulary changes along with it. New terms are introduced, others fall out of fashion, and it’s our job as marketers to keep up with them.

In foodpanda’s rebranding, they touched on three very popular concepts to form the persona of their new brand ambassador: environment, empowerment, and freedom. Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

Environment

What is sustainability?

In your everyday life, you probably see the word sustainable at least once a day. What does it actually mean?

Sustainability is about taking what we need now, without compromising the opportunities for people in the future to meet their needs. But, frankly speaking, “sustainable” could be also just another trendy word to describe a product and misused by many companies to increase sales. This means two things.

As a business, you have a responsibility to be honest and keep up with your promise if you intend to use this concept in your marketing. Misuse it, and you’ll lose credibility, no matter how trendy you will appear. As a consumer, you can check the company’s website to see what the promise is all about.

Pau-Pau, foodpanda’s new brand ambassador, taken from a video ad
Source: Foodpanda Hong Kong Facebook

Food delivery’s environmental impact and foodpanda’s sustainability in its rebranding.

Let’s face it. The convenience of food delivery is all too real, but the environmental impact of takeaway food is undeniable. Food delivery accounts for considerable waste. Thus, kudos to Foodpanda for not only recognising this, they took initiative to include environmental protection as the forefront of their 2022 rebranding.

The platform launched the Global Sustainable Packaging Programme in late 2021 to encourage food merchants to switch to plastic-free, plant-based packaging to reduce the impact on the environment as it works towards becoming a carbon-neutral organization. It’s published on their website that their vision to take action on their “journey to greener food delivery” has been thought out in three aspects: plastics, carbon, and food.

foodpanda’s sustainability initiatives
Source: Foodpanda Hong Kong
Image Source: Siam News

How your business can jump in on this “sustainability” buzzword

Sustainability is a big idea to get your head around, for all of us.

As consumers, it’s thinking about where your food, clothes, energy and products come from and deciding whether you should consume these things. As a business however, you must find ways to make your business ethical and environmentally friendly. From a scientific perspective, there is no other way. Start running your business sustainably from now on and you’d increase your chances to ensure the business stands the test of time.

Paradoxically, consumers like to feel they’ve made a good decision, but do not like having to make complex decisions. So, if you help them simplify the decision-making process plus giving them the feel-good factor, you convert them into brand evangelists, so to speak. Then, they will tell others, and more importantly, they will come back.

Empowerment

What is empowerment?

Pau-Pau showing the new app interface
Source: Yahoo Finance Singapore

Empowerment has become the catch-all marketing phrase.

In marketing, empowerment is to provide consumers with options, tools and resources to facilitate decision- making, allowing consumers to choose a product or service that suit their own desires. Ideally, by providing consumers with the power to make choices on their own – as opposed to a hard sell – consumers are happier with the brand experience.

Consumers will be more likely to revisit the brand in a positive way because empowerment marketing recasts the consumer as the hero with the power to affect big changes. Foodpanda ads send the message that you can get great service and good food while still doing good to the environment, anytime, anywhere.

Empowering Foodpanda customers to make wise environmental decisions

Consumers in the age of Internet communication and social media are finding themselves empowered by the fact that their opinions are being heard by companies like never before. Savvy digital marketers like foodpanda are leveraging this phenomenon to invite consumers into their brand’s social marketing.

It’s as if to say, “we hear you care about the environment, but you can’t do it on your own, so be part of our company’s movement to make real changes and bigger impacts”.

On foodpanda’s website, there are suggestions of things you as a consumer can do to invite you to join the movement as individuals. The 5-step guide to be part of their transition into a green delivery business includes using your own utensils, minimising food waste, reusing containers, picking up your food if it is on your way, and ordering in one go to save emissions.

Freedom

The F&B industry play the Freedom chord often, touting food as hard-earned rewards or treats.

Modern living is stressful, one way or another, from personal finances to family life, especially amidst the pandemic season. With this, consumers are likely to gravitate toward products and services that promise a feel-good factor. The freedom to make good decisions, the freedom to spend wisely, the freedom to treat yourself, and the freedom to control or indulge whenever and wherever you like.

Pau-Pau surrounded by indulgent pizzas from a pizza tree in Pau-Pau’s Adventures
Source: Foodpanda YouTube

The freedom of flexibility and convenience, with foodpanda

Although most Malaysians are understanding enough to respect MCO restrictions, the truth is, Malaysians are food lovers that enjoy indulging in a good meal, quite frequently too I must add. We live in a country where we’re privileged enough to afford to eat out at least once a week, many even rely on precooked meals every single day. Pau-pau ultimately seeks to soothe the frustration of not being able to go out for a meal.

Foodpanda’s rebranding puts freedom as one of their new focuses because they know that consumers need a lot more flexibility and options than ever before. We need food delivered anytime and anywhere, in a safe and fast manner too. Products and services that boost a consumer’s sense of control create a strong emotional connection.

How your business can jump in on the “empowerment” and “freedom” buzzword

These two terms slightly overlap, so I’ve combined the two.

How can you, as a business owner, encourage customers to choose you, while at the same time giving them the freedom and empowerment to make their own decisions? The answer is: you can’t, and that’s the beauty of it.

We live in the age of knowledge and increasingly more people are well educated and in-tune with current events. You can’t use marketing manipulation or fear-mongering as you used to anymore. You simply need to go back to the basics and offer good old excellent service and honest products.

Offer your customers the freedom to choose and the flexibility to control and customize. Plan fair prices and loyalty rewards that give consumers a sense of smart spending. Generous refund policies also enhance feelings of control. Something as simple as offering the option to opt out on cutleries will go a long way toward making consumers feel good about themselves, and about your brand, during and after the pandemic.

If you’re reading this article, you might be thinking about rebranding your company too.

Ibrands digital marketing and social media agency is located in Penang, but we’re open to working remotely with you. Some of the services we offer include social media marketing and management, branding, and logo design, amongst other major services. Speak to us if you need help and advice.