Sustainable food TikTok campaign reaches 110m people and results in 500,000 food dishes saved a year

Awards honour the best creativity among agencies and brands across Europe, with offline campaign impact taking centre stage this year

  Italian food company Barilla last night took home the Greatest TikTok Europe award at the inaugural TikTok Ad Awards Grand Prix.

  The second annual TikTok Ad Awards Grand Prix, held in Amsterdam, celebrated the brilliant agencies and brands leading the way with creative, high-performing campaigns on TikTok. The Awards showcased those best interpreting TikTok's mission to inspire creativity and bring joy.

  The jury - made up of eight members representing each European market - awarded Italy's Barilla the Greatest TikTok Europe for its #SecondLifePasta campaign, which sought to help people create recipes with leftover pasta. The campaign drove its sustainable food recipes to over 110m TikTokers, ultimately saving over 500,000 meals a year.

Ester Miozzo, Global Brand Equity and Communication Director, Barilla said: "There is an amazing idea at the heart of this project about reducing food waste and we're immensely proud to have delivered a meaningful message in an entertaining way with our campaign. The magic was created when we bought our team, our Agencies Partners, together with TikTok to ignite a creative spark, crafting something perfectly inkeeping with the nature of the brand. We activated TikTok first for the campaign because it gave us the opportunity to connect with people that we may not normally reach and, importantly, have fun with them - while landing an important message that in the end is about a “Sign of Love”.

Lina Arnold, Awards Juror and CEO of Joli Berlin, said, “Barilla's TikTok campaign brilliantly captured the essence of Italian culinary traditions, a testament to Italy's long-standing love affair with pasta. It transformed the practice of reusing leftover pasta into a global movement, creating new and delicious dishes. Their creative and inspirational content engaged the TikTok community and emphasized the importance of reducing food waste.

"This innovative campaign, rooted in authenticity, masterfully embodied the brand's core values and traditions while fitting seamlessly into all our TikTok ForYou pages. It set a new standard in digital advertising, showcasing that TikTok-first creative campaigns are here to stay and will reshape the future of brand engagement.”

  Creativity on TikTok inspires communities to take further action. According to research, 47% of a brand’s sales lift from advertising is the consequence of the creative, over any other element. TikTok is where creativity collides with performance - TikTok First Creative drives better brand outcomes, including a 10% increase in brand recall and a 47% increase in actions (1).

  Those that stand out on TikTok combine knowledge of our culture and community with our creative tools and techniques, to drive real world impact. TikTok offers brands the opportunity to create actionable entertainment that is culturally relevant, drives impact and inspires our community.

  TikTok makes it easy to create fun, authentic and engaging content that drives real world results for businesses of all sizes. That's why, for the first time since the inception of the TikTok Ad Awards, a dedicated category for small businesses was introduced to celebrate and acknowledge their creative campaigns on TikTok.

Stuart Flint, Head of Global Business Solutions for Europe at TikTok, commented: "What a year it's been for creativity on TikTok. Brands are continuing to develop a greater understanding of the community and how to reach them, while pushing creative boundaries, allowing them to build deeper trust and connections and produce undeniable results.

"All the brands and agencies nominated have truly captured the authentic, joyous, and entertaining content that is the bedrock of TikTok - but Barilla really harnessed the community, creating a two-way conversation, not only to create some incredible meals, but also to drive a sustainability message. Creative that's made with a TikTok-first mindset drives the strongest results for brands big and small."


  (1) Source: TikTok Marketing Science Creative Coding Analysis, Kantar 2022

  Appendix

  "Greatest TikTok" market winners:

  • Italy - Barilla (LePub)
  • UK - Glow For It (Develop Digital)
  • DACH- Está Pasando (charles & charlotte GmbH + ODALINE GmbH)
  • France - Burger King (Buzzman & Kr Wavemaker)
  • Spain - TOUS (Está Pasando)
  • Nordics - IA (ABBY.WORLD & Wavemaker)
  • Poland - Rossmann Polska


  The TikTok Ad Awards European Grand Prix jury 2023 was made up of an exceptional group of leaders from across the advertising industry:

  Lina Arnold, CEO at Joli Berlin, DACH

  Riccardo Fregoso, Chief Creative Officer & Executive Board Member at Dentsu Creative, Italy

  Paul Kemp-Robertson, Co Founder at Contagious, UK

  Ludovic Chevallier, Head of & Partner at Havas Paris, France

  Mónica Moro, Founder & CEO at This is Libre and President at Club de Creativos, Spain

  Rasmus Bjurström, Nordics

  Marcin Samek, Chief Innovation Officer at McCann, Poland