How Chicory Can Help With Conquesting: 3 Things to Know
It’s a common problem. Digital advertising can so often have brands constantly competing for consumer attention. Evolving consumer behaviors, heightened competition, and an everchanging landscape are making advertisers realize traditional ad placements alone are no longer enough to drive meaningful engagement.
Creative problems require creative solutions. This is where conquesting comes into play.
Conquesting is a unique targeting strategy that allows brands to appear in unexpected yet relevant contexts—leveraging product swaps and alternative uses to influence purchasing decisions. By meeting shoppers within recipe content, conquesting helps brands reach a wider set of shoppers that might’ve been more difficult to target otherwise.
Let’s explore three key things to know about conquesting and how Chicory uses it to help brands drive increased scale and awareness.
1. Conquesting Inspires New Usage Occasions
First off, conquesting is great for a “swap & educate strategy” to inform consumers of new ways to use a product.
For example, brands can suggest a swap like avocado oil for olive oil or plant-based milk for dairy milk. This approach inspires consumers to think differently about their go-to ingredients, helping them discover new product applications they may not have previously considered.
Chicory has the most robust contextual targeting taxonomy for the food and grocery category. We understand recipes down to the ingredient level, which is why we’re able to execute this strategy for brands.
This capability makes product swaps feel natural and contextually relevant, increasing the likelihood of consumer engagement. You can even leverage co-branded campaigns to highlight complementary product pairings. Building off the plant-based milk example, brands and retailers can showcase oat milk as a perfect pairing with a cereal brand, capitalizing on the natural connection between two complementary products.
Conquesting is also great for campaigns requiring increased scale, or if brands are looking to push new products entirely. By leveraging ad environments that do not directly call for your ingredient, but instead provide an opportunity for a substitute or alternative ingredient, you’re able to reach more consumers without sacrificing relevance.
Seasonality also plays a significant role in driving the success of conquesting campaigns. Campaigns targeting seasonal or high-scaling recipe categories, like baking during the holiday season, can inspire shoppers to purchase alternative ingredients like margarine instead of butter or egg substitutes for vegan-friendly cookies.
By educating shoppers on new usage occasions, conquesting can build product awareness and drive scale, making it a highly versatile tool for brands looking to reach consumers.
2. Conquesting Engages Consumers in a High-Intent Mindset
Overly receptive audiences feel like a thing of the past. With the rise of programmatic ads, most shoppers have begun to adopt “banner blindness”, totally ignoring abundant, irrelevant ads. This leads to wasted impressions and ad dollars.
Conquesting with contextual commerce media integrates ads within the consumer’s natural browsing journey.
For brands, this means reaching shoppers in active decision-making moments, whether that be pre-shop, mid-shop, or post-shop. By integrating conquesting within Chicory’s Premium In-Line Ads, brands can position themselves as viable alternatives right when consumers are considering ingredient choices.
Elevating Conquesting with Chicory Video
Static conquesting ads are effective, but adding video elements takes engagement to the next level. Chicory Video allows brands to:
Visually demonstrate conquesting (e.g., showing mayonnaise being used instead of sour cream).
Deliver highly viewable, engaging ads within recipe content with outstream placement.
Streamline purchasing journey with shoppable functionality.
As video continues to dominate digital engagement, conquesting combined with Chicory Video could be a highly effective way to meet video-first shoppers in a contextually relevant way.
3. Conquesting Delivers Proven Sales Impact
Conquesting isn’t just about increasing awareness—it’s a strategy that drives measurable results. By leveraging conquesting, brands have seen measurable results on their campaigns.
In a spring holiday campaign, a major condiment brand used conquesting to position its product as a versatile alternative to common ingredients like sour cream. This approach encouraged shoppers to try the product in new ways, such as dips and sauces, leading to increased engagement.
Shoppers engaging with the campaign were redirected to the promoted retailer’s website, proving conquesting to be effective in both inspiring what shoppers should purchase as well as where they should purchase from. Conquesting with Chicory can help build retailer awareness and loyalty.
The results were significant. 31% of sales came from new or lapsed shoppers, demonstrating the ability of conquesting to attract fresh audiences. The campaign also achieved an impressive 7.6X attributable ROAS.
Conclusion
It’s clear now more than ever: brands must go beyond traditional targeting strategies to capture consumer attention. Conquesting offers a unique opportunity to engage shoppers at key decision-making moments, introducing them to new products and usage occasions.
As brands prepare for upcoming seasonal shopping moments like Easter and summer grilling, leveraging Chicory’s conquesting strategies can help drive awareness, engagement, and conversion—in the moments that matter most.
