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ASIA-PACFIC – INDIA, JULY 16, 2012: Due to high popularity of previous seasons of MasterChef Australia, Star World India takes the passion among Indian fans of the show to social media through ‘The Social Buffet’ – a Facebook game, created and conceptualized by Grey Digital India of Grey Group.
Netizens are to don the chef’s hat and create their own dishes to make the longest buffet table with a Masterchef-like twist. A virtual kitchen is then assigned to the players and the only way they could complete a dish was by inviting friends from their Facebook network, who become the ingredients that had to come together to form a dish on the buffet table. The participant with the longest buffet table wins a return trip to Australia.
According to Star India English channels business head Saurabh Yagnik, Indian audiences for MasterChef Australia love the food, love watching it being cooked on the show and are extremely involved in the journey of the contestants as well as the judges. “Hence, we sought to give them an opportunity to cook the dishes they love with the people they love,” Yagnik said.
The fundamental insight the team worked with are the Indians’ social nature, Grey Digital India senior vice president Sudhir Nair said. “This is where the inherent social nature of Facebook came to life as participants used their social connections to fuel participation,” Nair said.
Over a three-week period, the application has seen over 75,000 gameplays with over 5,000 dishes being formed on Facebook. Grey Digital India group creative director Navin Kansal said, “What is mouth-watering about these numbers is that players of the game alone were responsible for approximately 200,000 direct social connections which resulted in an average connection request conversion of 22% – a reflection of the high organic spread the campaign has effectively managed to achieve.”
