Insights
Barry Callebaut’s Treat Tomorrow brings ‘Netflix-like’ experience to confectionery
Barry Callebaut’s live stream of its new Treat Tomorrow series hit unexpected technical difficulties when it was launched on Thursday 28 April - due to enormous last-minute subscriber demand that crashed the website.
Subscribers received an email saying the chocolate, cocoa and gourmet supplier experienced a ‘perfect storm, technically’.
“We share your disappointment and sincerely apologise for any inconvenience. We are in the process of making all 5 miniseries available for on-demand access in the coming days.”
A new chocolate indulgence
The ‘Netflix-like’ experience is part of a new initiative in collaboration with customers and experts to carve a plan for ‘new’ chocolate indulgence, intending to foster new and emerging consumer desires addressing climate, social inequality, and personal health concerns.
Kicking off the first mini-series are five 12-minute episodes, which have now been added to the treattomorrow.com website, exploring themes such as ‘A Taste For Health’,’ ’The Garden Party’, ‘Gen Zest for Life’, ‘Accountab’All, and ‘1,2,Tree,Go!’.
Pablo Perversi, Barry Callebaut’s Chief Innovation, Sustainability & Quality Officer, told ConfectioneryNews the platform was overstretched to its limits, the situation exasperated by already high global demand for wifi and broadband because of COVID-19 lockdowns.
“We were the victims of our own success in many ways. In the last minute we had a huge demand that was unplanned for because we thought that people would actually register before the event.”
Perversi explained that the Netflix idea came about because of the mini-series experience where you can see the different chapters and engage with them in your own time.
“You can choose which miniseries you want to interact and those series will actually have different parts to it and they take you through from what do you see as the change happening in the world to making it yours and actually benefitting from it.”
With the first season of Treat Tomorrow now online, Perversi said there will be more coming once viewers are familiar with the concept and Barry Callebaut has had time to engage with the subscribers.
The new online initiative was also introduced because of the lack of live food and gourmet events where Barry Callebaut normally would have a presence and be able to engage with consumers and its customers.
This new platform will help the company not only stay in touch with its core audience but continue to drive its innovation while offering easy access on how best to use its cocoa, chocolate and gourmet in an ever-changing market.
“I think it's about making sure that we can help in driving trends in making sure that everybody can embed them,” said Perversi. “But also, that everybody can make the most out of them because the idea is that, if we can help our customers be successful we will be successful ourselves and therefore, providing the foresight of what's happening in the world – and what changes will affect us, which ones won't affect us as much and how everybody can capitalise on those changes. That's the idea of success for everybody.”
