Unilever French mustard brand Maille has built a boutique online and seven locations around the world to help people understand how the French use mustard to accentuate an amazing food experience. They had great traffic on their website with people buying a range of flavours, as well as large traffic into their stores where expert sommeliers shared their knowledge and a range of forty-five flavours.
The challenge was how could Maille continue to build a relationship with curious foodies that experience the in-store magic if they didn’t purchase a product?
In collaboration with Mr President, Hirsch&Mann created the smart Maille Discovery Spoon as a tool for the in-store sommeliers to turn tasting experiences into data. As the sommeliers explained the different flavours, customers could tap their smart spoon on a RFID sensor in front of the jar allowing them to save all their favourites. When they had finished tasting, they put the spoon into a specialised jar that logged all of their favourites and offered them different inspired French recipes and tasting notes via iPad app. When the tasters typed in their email address using a provincial, fun, old-school typewriter, they received a tidy printed receipt to take in-hand and a colourful email with all of their favourites via Unilever’s eCRM system.
The outcome was a fun customer experience that helps to transfer a physical boutique customer into an online acquisition by blending the online and offline worlds through the simple tap of a spoon.
