Vol. 80. RAGÚ: The impromptu cake stunt 🥕

There’s a real moment of truth that happens when a brand goes unintentionally viral and is thrown into the spotlight. 

We saw this happen to Hellman’s Real Mayonnaise when a Scotland-based ice cream shop created a mayo ice cream flavor using their product (the reaction to which was very mixed). Hellman’s decided to sit back and silently weather that PR storm. Meanwhile, the ice cream shop owner went on the Today show and described the dessert as a “full on hit of fat and cream followed with an eggy milky aftertaste.” 

On a smaller scale, RAGÚ ran into their own spotlight moment recently when a popular Twitch streamer bought one of the brand’s vintage recipe tins online and posted about a peculiar recipe she found.

This week, Case Studied explores how RAGÚ won positive sentiment and organic engagement through an improvised marketing stunt. 

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The Brief:

RAGÚ is one of the most established pasta sauce brands in the U.S., with a presence in grocery aisles for over 85 years. It started off in 1937 as a family operation during the Great Depression, being sold directly from the founders’ front porch. 

After seeing booming growth, the company was acquired by Chesebrough-Ponds, which later merged with Unilever. Then in 2014, the Japanese company Mizkan acquired RAGÚ (and Bertolli) from Unilever for $2.15 billion.

Fast forward to 2024 and RAGÚ’s community management team noticed the brand getting repeatedly tagged in a specific video. A Twitch streamer named Luxie had posted about a recipe tin from the 70s she bought that was filled with retro RAGÚ recipes—including one for carrot cake that called for 3/4 cup of RAGÚ spaghetti sauce. 

The brand could’ve handled this moment in many ways but best practice says to enter conversations in a way that’s additive and invited. This one, however, didn’t fall into the typical community/social engagement parameters. 

When it comes to online engagement, someone is usually either praising a brand, criticizing them, or flagging a problem they had with them. In this case, Luxie wasn’t criticizing the brand—she was more so curious. RAGÚ’s team thought they had a chance at converting her into a fan, so they put together a game plan and seized the opportunity. 

The Execution:

To turn this scenario into a net-positive, RAGÚ strategized very intentionally about what would be tonally appropriate. 

Should they simply thank Luxie for being a fan and mail her some sauce? Should they fly her out to the RAGÚ HQ so she could bake the carrot cake with their in-house chef? Neither felt quite right. 

Instead, RAGÚ went to eBay and bought the same recipe tin Luxie had. They sent her a direct message expressing gratitude for her enthusiasm and asked if they could send her a gift as a token of their appreciation. 

She agreed, the brand got her address, and from there, they found a bakery in her neighborhood that could create the vintage spaghetti sauce carrot cake. 

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The final product was delivered to Luxie’s door and she ended up posting its arrival as she tasted the cake herself (FWIW she said, “It tastes way better than mine”). She then recapped the entire story on TikTok again and posted twice about it on Instagram. 

After seeing that they’d officially acquired a fan, RAGÚ recapped the story on their own social channels with Luxie’s approval.

The Results:

RAGÚ spent $26.02 on the recipe tin and $195.18 on the custom carrot cake for Luxie. 

From that $221.20, they earned 100,000 impressions across two Instagram stories and one TikTok post. Luxie’s content and the recap video posted to RAGÚ’s feed earned 100% positive sentiment and boasted a 70% increase in the brand’s normal monthly performance. 

RAGÚ’s recap video was among the brand’s top performing posts on Instagram and TikTok, earning over 19,000 organic views. The impromptu campaign even inspired the brand to do a recipe-tin content series and the first video of the series ended up being one of RAGÚ’s top performing organic posts of the year with 6,700 views. 

Key Takeaways:

There’s a lot to learn from this accidental campaign RAGÚ pulled off on a shoestring budget. Here’s a few lessons that stand out:

1) Listen before you speak.

RAGÚ’s team didn’t rush into the comment section or try to control the potentially negative narrative. They listened, analyzed, and interpreted Luxie’s tone before deciding on a course of action.

It’s okay to take a beat before you act, even when it comes to social media channels that move at breakneck speed. Putting intention and strategy above speed can help ensure your tone and tactics match the moment. Sometimes, subtle gestures can sometimes land more steadily than splashy ones.

2) Don’t waste a weird moment.

A red-sauce carrot cake is objectively strange, but it’s also intriguing. Instead of denying the weirdness, RAGÚ leaned into it, brought the vintage recipe to life, and earned a ton of organic engagement as a result.

Spontaneous moments of intrigue don’t come along often so when they do, make sure you rise to the occasion. To proactively prepare, consider mapping out how you’d like to strategically approach the PR gray areas that fall outside the typical scenarios

3) Find ways to surprise and delight new communities.

Luxie isn’t a food creator or influencer partner, and her original post wasn’t paid for by RAGÚ. It was just an unexpected gesture by someone in a niche audience (one that also happened to be previously untapped by RAGÚ). 

As you experiment with new fan bases or audiences, start small. A simple, personal gesture to an influential figure within the community can sometimes be more impactful than a formal partnership. Before diving into new spaces, do your research on what the audience engages with. Plan your touchpoints from there.

4) Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself.

Rather than bristling at the odd recipe or the implied criticism, RAGÚ showed that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. That move earned them credibility with younger audiences who don’t have the same familiarity with RAGÚ’s legacy brand.

A little levity goes a long way. Take a look at your brand’s risk tolerance and look for ways to experiment within it. It’s a delicate balance but humor, humility, and heritage can coexist—especially if you’re willing to bake a tomato sauce carrot cake to prove it.

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