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We found love in a hopeless slop-bowl place.
Earlier this year, Andrew Downing, director of social media at Cava, tasked his team with coming up with a show for social media after seeing other creators and brands hop on the trend and sensing an opportunity in the unscripted reality space.
“We were seeing some of these [social series] that resemble old TV shows,” he said, noting that series like Boy Room, which tours the dirty and often bizarrely decorated rooms of men in New York, resembles MTV’s Room Raiders, where single contestants’ rooms were inspected by potential dates. “I told people to go research some old reality shows and see how we can spin that into a social show.”
About 15 ideas later, the Cava team landed on Bowlmates, a six-episode, weekly Instagram dating series hosted by creator and stand-up comedian Daniela Mora. In each episode, created with the Very Online Agency, two contestants build each other a Cava bowl while answering questions about each other and ultimately deciding whether or not they are, in fact, “bowlmates.”
Season 1 has now officially wrapped, and Downing says the brand’s bet on love has paid off enough to start planning Season 2.
“This is just an expansion of the Cavaverse and trying to figure out other touch points that we know people are interested in,” Downing said.
Love Story (Cava’s Version)
Bowlmates lives on its own Instagram account separate from the official Cava brand account, which has more than 300,000 followers. While Bowlmates’ 1,000+ followers may pale in comparison, Downing said it was a conscious decision to game the Instagram algorithm as it pushes content to non-followers. A separate account also provides an easy way for viewers to watch all the episodes in succession without other, non-Bowlmates posts getting in the way.
Starting fresh on any new account can make it harder to get eyeballs, but Downing said that the first two videos received more than 300,000 views without any paid media, which“outperformed [his team’s] wildest dreams.” The number of inquiries the brand has received from viewers asking to be on the show as contestants, he said, has been another unexpected indicator of success.
“We can actually tally the amount of DMs we get now asking us to be on the show,” Downing said. “That was something we never even thought of.”
Cava isn’t the first brand to take note of the fact that many young people are looking for love off of the dating apps, but being part of people’s potential love stories can have other positive effects. Many of the contestants on the show have noted that they’ve never tried Cava before, which Downing said wasn’t intentional but has shown the brand the potential of reaching new customers through this method.
Bowlmates is designed to encourage word-of-mouth and organic discovery, and Downing said it was important to get the right host to help boost awareness. Mora, a Bronx-born comedian who has more than 320,000 followers on Instagram, was Cava’s first choice.
“We knew that we wanted a comedian to riff between two people, just in case, for whatever reason, the conversation stalled,” he said. “[Mora’s] online presence and the content she shares about dating and real-life, Gen Z stuff definitely factored in.”
The final episode of Season 1 premiered this week, with almost every episode ending in an agreed-upon bowlmance, and Season 2 is now putting out casting calls for New Yorkers. According to Downing, Cava’s decision to continue with Season 2 was based on the level of engagement in the show’s comments and DMs. He said he’s excited about the potential of using the series to release holiday content or to promote things like new menu items in future seasons. A “Where are they now?” segment with couples from Season 1 is also not out of the question.
“Anything that is a trope in a reality show or in dating content, we’re very well aware of it and we’re always thinking, ‘Oh, could we do that? Could we do this?’” he said. “I think it would be a really fun addition.”
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