Ottolenghi Is Reinventing The Brand Storytelling Script

How do you launch a book in modern culture? A pertinent question when considering emerging technology, popular social platforms, fragmented attention spans. But for hospitality brand Ottolenghi, co-founded by chef Yotam Ottolenghi, its cookbooks are proof that appetite for reading is still there. 

Its most popular read, ‘Simple’, launched in 2018, sold 11 million copies and resides in one in eight UK homes, according to Shona Campbell, chief marketing and growth officer at Ottolenghi. With the launch of its highly anticipated sequel, ‘Simple Too’, the brand is looking to answer that very question while working with its first creative agency, Ace of Hearts. 

“For a lot of people sitting in publishing and hospitality CMO roles, this type of creative relationship doesn't really exist,” Campbell explains. “It’s not naturally a lever you can pull, but I think it should be. We’re trying to break down some silos that happen in industries that don't necessarily need to be there.”

Sitting in the agency’s Soho office, its CEO Polly McMorrow and Campbell discuss how they plan to turn publishing on its head, developing Ottolenghi’s brand foundations, and how their partnership came into fruition. 

Launching a book in modern culture

Long-gone are the days where books are the premium medium for consuming content. Hello phones, hello laptops, hello AI chatbots. 

However, the good old instructional cookbook hasn't yet been lost; last year two of Australia’s top ten bestsellers were cookbooks, while baking cookbook sales increased by 80 per cent. 

Despite there still being an appetite for them, brand publishers must be clearer than ever on their need; why release a book when TikTok exists? 

“That was a big part of the conversation we had with Ace of Hearts - because the joke about Ottolenghi is that it takes 15 ingredients that you've had to buy new to create one dish. So we are far from simple,” explains Campbell. “‘Simple Too’ is not about Ottolenghi being easy -  it's about what simple cooking looks like in the current culture.” 

The publishing rulebook traditionally doesn’t make space for creative agencies, continues Campbell - authors do interviews, go on tour; “But we’re lucky to be working with Ebury Publishing — the best publishing house in the business, who have been brilliantly collaborative and open with us throughout, and are on board with modernising the system a little.

“I was here for our last book ‘Comfort’, two years ago. In that time, the whole media landscape continues to change at pace. People are finding us through Substack, through influencers. There's such a shift in between each book, and probably more so now.”

Substack has proven a particular hit for Ottolenghi — despite its seemingly unique front as a marketing channel. 

“We launched our Substack a year and a half ago, and it’s completely skyrocketed,” she adds. “Recently Yotam put up a picture of these tomatoes asking for ideas. We then got almost 100 people sharing their recipes back to us. That is what you dream of as a brand — that conversation means people are there, listening and engaging.” 

And while ‘Simple Too’ doesn’t hit the shelves until September, the pair hint at what to expect — and what will perhaps surprise audiences - from using new media channels to tapping into the world of influencers. 

“Less broadcast, more conversation,” outlines McMorrow. “Sometimes launches can feel a bit like they’re projected onto their audiences, but this feels like much more of a dialog with audiences, versus it being one way.” 

It aims to tap into the passions of its fans and really lean into what feedback is being heard in unexpected ways; and the duo bounce off one another as they chat reinventing the mainstream.  

Campbell cites Harry Styles’ 'Runner’s World' edition as a source of inspiration; “I'm obsessed with that campaign. It’s exactly the sort of thing we need. You've got to do something that is unexpected.”

McMorrow agrees: “Passion is the thing that makes the Harry Styles piece work. I remember in one of those first meetings, when we were going through some of the recipes — there's one in particular that everyone started making, and there's this infectiousness to it.

“The work is this lovely testament to how you can move things on and reinvent, without moving things off.”

Developing brand foundations

Change can be a good thing, and this is proving true for Ottolenghi. 

It’s a brand that branched out from its founding Notting Hill restaurant in 2002 to being stocked in Waitrose, Ocado, and Sainsbury’s. It’s number of delis and restaurants are also ever-growing with the most recent opening in Edinburgh and Amsterdam. 

“We have a big following in Australia, America, and Europe,” explains Campbell. “When I arrived three years ago I really got thinking about about how to optimise our brand love globally. How do we make that interaction with all of our fans more meaningful, more kind of like part of their cultural day-to-day digest?’”

Yotam, she adds, is “really involved” in the business; “We’re constantly talking about what is right and what isn't. That sometimes shifts for a brand - something that a couple of years ago wasn't right, now is.

“I feel like a real brand guardian. Knowing the brand so deeply, and having a checklist in my head that allows us to broaden this out and have other people around the table having that conversation with us.”

For Ace of Hearts, the proposition of developing a brand while maintaining its established foundations wasn’t a daunting challenge. 

“You put a business challenge or an opportunity in the middle, and then it's just the people around that table at which our partner is absolutely part of that,” explains McMorrow. “The sense of transaction just isn't there because you are genuinely around a table talking about it.” 

The best brands, she says, reinvent themselves in real time; “We believe in that — believe in being able to move businesses and brands on. It's what we know; it's what we love doing.” 

The pathway to partnership

Despite its growing success as a brand, Ottolenghi has never worked with a creative agency up until now — something Campbell, having worked for the likes of Harvey Nichols, Mulberry and Google across her career, believed was the right timing. 

She reveals that working with Richard Brim, Ace of Hearts’ co-founder and CCO, earlier in her career on Harvey Nichols campaigns was a real influence on deciding to approach Ace of Hearts. 

What started as a meeting for coffee without a fully-formed brief turned into a flood of “ideas around creativity born out of great conversation” - and facilitated the ball rolling for “doing things differently for Ottolenghi.”

For Ace of Hearts, now approaching its first anniversary, being approached directly for collaboration has been “amazing”, outlines McMorrow. 

“There wasn’t a brief in the traditional sense. We knew we’d be looking after the launch of the book, but really we were able to co-create what we were being asked to do, and co-define the best outcomes. What do we think is interesting? And how do we think that can leverage across different parts of the Ottolenghi ecosystem?”

She adds that the agency hopes to pave a pathway for change in the industry that needs to go through a spell of regeneration. 

“When we started talking about setting up a business, it felt so important that we weren’t creating another version of all the things that had come before. We wanted to set up a company that felt like the next chapter of the industry and the next chapter of creative businesses and companies who really care about delivering disproportionate commercial returns by pulling what we believe is the most disproportionately advantageous thing: creativity.”

While there’s some months of waiting to see what comes of this collaboration, the book hopes to add to the superpower cooking holds against the algorithm, ready to be lived with, splattered on, and returned to.