People In Focus

Instant Pot brand manager gears up for a product launch

For as long as she can remember, Candice has always been interested in the world of marketing.

Marketing a particular product is not just about the aesthetics and design of the brand. Rather, the thrill of creating powerful emotional connections with your audience truly is the most challenging and the most rewarding experience for anyone in brand marketing.

Her love for the craft, passion for success, and belief in the importance of hard work led her to Focus Global in her role as Instant Pot Philippines’ brand manager

As the Instant Pot team prepared for the launch of the Instant Pot Duo Plus, we asked Candice to take us along for the ride. Read on as Candice gives us an exclusive look at what happens behind the scenes in the weeks leading up to the big event. 

For as long as she can remember, Candice has always been interested in the world of marketing.

Marketing a particular product is not just about the aesthetics and design of the brand. Rather, the thrill of creating powerful emotional connections with your audience truly is the most challenging and the most rewarding experience for anyone in brand marketing.

Her love for the craft, passion for success, and belief in the importance of hard work led her to Focus Global in her role as Instant Pot Philippines’ brand manager

As the Instant Pot team prepared for the launch of the Instant Pot Duo Plus, we asked Candice to take us along for the ride. Read on as Candice gives us an exclusive look at what happens behind the scenes in the weeks leading up to the big event. 

June (Week 1)

First things first, let’s brainstorm

It’s important for us to start this process early on to ensure we have enough time to finalize launch plans, overall themes, budgeting, and execution. We also want to make sure we get the right mileage and product placements from our trade accounts, partner influencers, and e-commerce platforms such as Shopee.

During these brainstorming sessions, we do our best to bring fresh ideas to the table. These ideas are usually influenced by the latest social media trends and activities from celebrity chefs, influencers, and international brand campaigns.

Putting into practice what we’ve learned from previous launches like the Vortex Air Fryer, we want to focus this campaign on long-term customer education rather than pushing the campaign for a short promotional period. This can be accomplished through teasers, product videos, and graphics that talk about the main features of the Duo Plus. 

June (Week 1)

First things first, let’s brainstorm

It’s important for us to start this process early on to ensure we have enough time to finalize launch plans, overall themes, budgeting, and execution. We also want to make sure we get the right mileage and product placements from our trade accounts, partner influencers, and e-commerce platforms such as Shopee.

During these brainstorming sessions, we do our best to bring fresh ideas to the table. These ideas are usually influenced by the latest social media trends and activities from celebrity chefs, influencers, and international brand campaigns.

Putting into practice what we’ve learned from previous launches like the Vortex Air Fryer, we want to focus this campaign on long-term customer education rather than pushing the campaign for a short promotional period. This can be accomplished through teasers, product videos, and graphics that talk about the main features of the Duo Plus. 

June (Week 2)

Lights, Camera, Planning 

Creating well-thought-out content takes a lot of preparation. 

First we scheduled product demos for our in-house chefs, brand marketing, customer success, and sales team so everyone can experience the product in action.

Then in today’s pre-production meeting, we finalized the recipes, ingredients, props, venue, availability of key attendees, and equipment we might need for the product shoot. 

Chef Chai developed healthy family recipes that could highlight the new features of the Duo Plus, including a sous vide flank steak with tomato green mango salad & a sous vide chicken curry salad.

June (Week 2)

Lights, Camera, Planning 

Creating well-thought-out content takes a lot of preparation. 

First we scheduled product demos for our in-house chefs, brand marketing, customer success, and sales team so everyone can experience the product in action.

Then in today’s pre-production meeting, we finalized the recipes, ingredients, props, venue, availability of key attendees, and equipment we might need for the product shoot. 

Chef Chai developed healthy family recipes that could highlight the new features of the Duo Plus, including a sous vide flank steak with tomato green mango salad & a sous vide chicken curry salad.

June (Week 3)

Shoot Day!

We normally work with a lean team our head chef, assistant, photographer, plus the Instant Pot marketing team. 

It took us about 8 hours to shoot four recipes: from initial food prep to styling, shooting, and cleanup.

One of the things I learned as a brand manager is how crucial teamwork and collaboration can be on big projects like this. Even if we plan everything out, we still encounter small hurdles that force us to improvise and think on the spot. For example, today we had to make changes to a recipe because a fresh ingredient was unavailable. Luckily the team was quick to think of alternatives and we were able to finish all the spreads we needed. 

June (Week 3)

Shoot Day!

We normally work with a lean team our head chef, assistant, photographer, plus the Instant Pot marketing team. 

It took us about 8 hours to shoot four recipes: from initial food prep to styling, shooting, and cleanup.

One of the things I learned as a brand manager is how crucial teamwork and collaboration can be on big projects like this. Even if we plan everything out, we still encounter small hurdles that force us to improvise and think on the spot. For example, today we had to make changes to a recipe because a fresh ingredient was unavailable. Luckily the team was quick to think of alternatives and we were able to finish all the spreads we needed. 

June (Weeks 2 – 4)

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

It takes a village to build an effective campaign.

This week we worked with the Graphic Design team to conceptualize the overall look and design of our artworks; our E-Commerce team helped us identify the best dates and platform partners for the launch; the Digital Marketing analysts narrowed down our target audiences for boosted posts and ads.

We also worked with our Web Development, Warehouse, CG Sales, and Customer Success teams to push forward other key launch initiatives.

June (Weeks 2 – 4)

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

It takes a village to build an effective campaign.

This week we worked with the Graphic Design team to conceptualize the overall look and design of our artworks; our E-Commerce team helped us identify the best dates and platform partners for the launch; the Digital Marketing analysts narrowed down our target audiences for boosted posts and ads.

We also worked with our Web Development, Warehouse, CG Sales, and Customer Success teams to push forward other key launch initiatives.

June (Week 4) – July (Week 2)

Going Online

We started posting our digital content on June 21, starting with teaser posts and building up with a series of educational videos, a promo price reveal, reminder posts, and finally our grand launch reveal.

Our main headline for the launch is Everything You Need PLUS More! to showcase the impact of the added Duo Plus functionalities in our customers’ everyday cooking lives. 

To get more exposure, we pushed to get additional mileage from Shopee by investing in additional app placements and Shopee KOLs. 

We also partnered with Knorr and Lady’s Choice for Shopee’s Brand of the Day, which allowed us to promote the launch on Unilever’s page. Through this collab, we‘re gifting samples of their products to our customers with every purchase of the Duo Plus.

June (Week 4) – July (Week 2)

Going Online

We started posting our digital content on June 21, starting with teaser posts and building up with a series of educational videos, a promo price reveal, reminder posts, and finally our grand launch reveal.

Our main headline for the launch is Everything You Need PLUS More! to showcase the impact of the added Duo Plus functionalities in our customers’ everyday cooking lives. 

To get more exposure, we pushed to get additional mileage from Shopee by investing in additional app placements and Shopee KOLs. 

We also partnered with Knorr and Lady’s Choice for Shopee’s Brand of the Day, which allowed us to promote the launch on Unilever’s page. Through this collab, we‘re gifting samples of their products to our customers with every purchase of the Duo Plus.

D-Day

Launch PLUS More 

This is it! After months of planning, the big launch date has finally arrived…but our work doesn’t stop here!

We continuously monitor sales and analytics across all our marketing channels and improvise content and ads as needed. 

It is always a challenge to predict consumer behavior. In marketing, we use analytics to foresee our audience’s behavior pattern but by the time we launch, we might be dealing with a totally new trend already. As a solution, we’re always ready to adapt and change our marketing strategy to cope with the situation.

I’m very proud of what we’ve done for the Duo Plus launch and I couldn’t have done it without the help from all the teams we worked with! 

D-Day

Launch PLUS More 

This is it! After months of planning, the big launch date has finally arrived…but our work doesn’t stop here!

We continuously monitor sales and analytics across all our marketing channels and improvise content and ads as needed. 

It is always a challenge to predict consumer behavior. In marketing, we use analytics to foresee our audience’s behavior pattern but by the time we launch, we might be dealing with a totally new trend already. As a solution, we’re always ready to adapt and change our marketing strategy to cope with the situation.

I’m very proud of what we’ve done for the Duo Plus launch and I couldn’t have done it without the help from all the teams we worked with! 

Hats off to Candice and our Instant Pot team for successfully launching the Instant Pot Duo Plus

If you’ve got the same drive, passion, and love for Marketing as Candice does, we’re always on the lookout for more people to join our brand management teams! Check out our open positions on the Careers page.

Hats off to Candice and our Instant Pot team for successfully launching the Instant Pot Duo Plus

If you’ve got the same drive, passion, and love for Marketing as Candice does, we’re always on the lookout for more people to join our brand management teams! Check out our open positions on the Careers page.