ITSU

Charlie Oscar was brought in at a pivotal moment for itsu: the launch of its new and improved Noodle Pot range, developed in collaboration with celebrity chef Monica Galetti. The challenge was twofold: redefine the noodle pot category, away from cheap, unhealthy convenience and towards premium, nutritious, genuinely beautiful food, while producing high-performing creative that could re-engage existing fans, attract new customers in a crowded FMCG landscape, and drive measurable engagement and retail sales uplift.

A NPD campaign with this much potential deserved more than putting product into the hands of a few foodie influencers and hoping for the best. It required intention at every stage. Our goal: build a strategic, full-funnel influencer campaign that would deliver both genuine cultural relevance and real commercial impact.

We were fortunate to have renowned chef Monica Galetti on board to bring the story to life. But in true Charlie Oscar fashion, we took it further. To expand relevance and move the campaign beyond awareness, we brought four carefully selected hero creators into the mix to speak to targeted customer personas, alongside a strategic cast of unexpected British TikTok icons to drive cultural buzz and talkability.

This 3-tiered creator strategy allowed us to tell the noodle pot story through voices that authentically embodied itsu’s key audience personas, while seamlessly placing the product within the content formats and cultural spaces those audiences are already consuming.

Together with our cast of creators, we produced an editorial-quality content series, far beyond standard UGC, with our hero persona creators. Our foodie creator, Nguyen Yeats-Brown (@itsgnochgnoch), even starred directly alongside Monica, bringing together two distinct foodie worlds: the trusted culinary authority of Monica and the vibrant, relatable influence of Nguyen. This pairing elevated the campaign, blending credibility, craft, and social-first foodie appeal in a way that resonated across audiences.

For our unexpected cast of British icons, which included everyone’s favourite wholesome couple, Michael and Teresa Barnett (@makemeanoffer), and London’s favourite “Bus Lady,” Bemi Orojuogun (@omo.oroje), we leaned into their UGC styles, seamlessly embedding the product into the entertaining content formats and narratives they naturally create.

Together, this multi-layered creator lineup produced both editorial-quality and UGC content that was scroll-stopping and strategically aligned to engage, entertain, and convert across platforms and itsu’s diverse audience landscape.

Our editorial campaign videos, when adapted for social formats and paid social, generated countless content variants for testing. Ranging from light-hearted blindfolded taste-testing games and niche-specific storytelling to intimate quick-fire kitchen interviews with Monica. The content elevated the humble noodle pot, placing it firmly within premium environments.

This content was further amplified through influencer UGC, allowing the story to continue naturally across their personal platforms, while also being optimised for ROI with partnership ads on TikTok and YouTube. The results were extraordinary.

The campaign’s VTR (view-through rate) outperformed TikTok’s benchmark by 59%. We also drove brand intent uplifts, a metric that rarely sees movement in paid campaigns on the platform.