HIDE, the food brand on a mission to reinvent convenience food, is taking aim at one of Britain’s most misunderstood food categories with a bold new out-of-home campaign designed to challenge everything shoppers think they know about ready meals.
The campaign marks HIDE’s first brand investment to date since its nationwide launch into Tesco stores earlier this year. It reflects their ambition to change perceptions of the ready meal aisle by creating meals for people who have traditionally avoided the category altogether.
Rolling out across multiple London sites until mid-August, the campaign puts HIDE’s chef-made meals front and centre with a series of unapologetically direct headlines including:
READY MEALS WEREN’T READY FOR THIS
READY MEALS FOR PEOPLE WHO ‘DON’T EAT READY MEALS’
THE BEST THING TO HAPPEN TO THE MEAL DEAL IN LIKE, EVER
MEAL DEAL: BOSS LEVEL
Created by creative agency Among Equals, the campaign strips away the clichés often associated with convenience food. Instead of glossy food styling or overworked advertising claims, the billboards focus almost entirely on HIDE’s products, using simple, confident copy to reflect the brand’s belief that exceptional food doesn’t need dressing up.
Faraz Nagree, founder of HIDE, commented: “For years, ready meals have carried a stigma that they’re something you buy when you don’t have another option. We started HIDE to challenge that thinking and took the same approach in our first OOH campaign. We believe convenience should never come at the expense of taste, quality or health, and this campaign says exactly what we’re all thinking – ready meals weren’t ready for this.”
Emily Jeffrey-Barrett, founder at Among Equals, added: “The intention was to create billboards with nothing to hide. They’re probably the most on-brand thing we could make. They’re honest, straightforward and don’t try to dress the product up, because the food speaks for itself.”
As consumer expectations around convenience food continue to evolve, HIDE hopes the campaign will spark a wider conversation about why the category has been underestimated for so long, and why a new generation of ready meals is changing that perception.
Created by Lean Kitchen Network, NHS doctor Dr Rupy Aujla, and Flight Studios, HIDE is built on a straightforward belief that food should taste delicious, and be made from ingredients you recognise. In the first few months of launching in Tesco HIDE has sold over 500,000 meals, and since launch, Grace Beverley joined the team as a strategic advisor and co-owner, and earlier this month, Sunna van Kampen, Founder of Tonic Health, joined HIDE as a strategic advisor and investor.
