CASE STUDY

Chapter $7$ : The Pure and Easy Food Lifestyle

Have you ever cooked $$lovely jubbly$[=$really nice$]$ or $$pukka$[=$excellent$]$ food?

Then you have not seen a cooking show by the people$$s chef, Jamie Oliver, so far. The British cook, who helped in his parents$$ pub$$s kitchen as a kid, started his

career at The River Caf$,$ a famous Italian restaurant in West London. That is where

he was discovered during the filming of a documentary by the BBC$,$ who

subsequently offered him his own TV show in $1999.$ TV food formats that dominated

the TV networks then were either posh, eccentric, or purely instructional. Moving

away from these for$-$mats, the concept of Jamie$$s $$The Naked Chef$$ programme was

based on stripping food down to its plain and pure essentials. Jamie$$s inspirational

and authentic demeanour, his enthusiastic passion for healthy fresh food, and his

spontaneous, laid$-$back approach to cooking was paired with the presentation of

simple recipes. The idea was to reduce complexity for home cooks, make meals easy, take away the anxiety of preparing dishes from scratch, and thereby encouraging

home cooks to prepare food fresh instead of resorting to takeaways. The approach hit

home with the show becoming a huge success in the expanding $$living well$$ lifestyle

market: from amateur cooks to timid cooks eager to prepare healthy food quickly to

the generally growing number of people interested in cooking and food quality, the

programme struck the right note. Building on his fame, Jamie embarked upon further TV show formats $($e$.$g$.,$ Jamie$$s Kitchen, Jamie at Home, Jamie$$s Great Italian Escape$)$ and even started live

cook shows in British and Australian theatres. In addition, he has published more than

$20$ cook books, started his own magazine $$Jamie$,$ and has launched his own range of

cookware, table$-$ware, kitchen utensils, and bakeware. Further, the British celebrity chef also pursued several endorsements: sharing the

vision of the importance of fresh and tasty food, Jamie became the advertising face of

Sainsbury$$s$,$ one of Britain$$s largest supermarkets, from $2000$ to $2011.$ His influence

on consumers$$ cooking styles became apparent; for example, in a promotional activity

in $2005,$ Jamie added grated nutmeg over spaghetti Bolognese which caused the sales

$1$

of nutmeg to shoot up from $1400$ jars to $6000$ jars a week within a week$$s time.The

German headquartered firm Hello Fresh, which delivers fresh, preportioned

ingredients to consumers as a meal$-$kit, started a co$-$branding relationship with Jamie

in $2016.$ The company$$s business model and Jamie$$s philosophy seem to match

perfectly: having fun while cooking fresh food in a simple way. In addition, the deal

included the promise to make donations for every box sold to Jamie Oliver$$s Food

Foundation, which tries to improve food education. Next to his entrepreneurial projects, he also engaged himself in social marketing

fighting for environmental causes as well as against childhood obesity $($by proposing a

sugar tax on soft drinks$)$ and advocating healthy and nutritious school diners in the

UK$.$ All these ventures helped to further enlarge the fan base Jamie had already built

up with his TV shows. Moreover, he did not shy away from more dialogue$-$centred

activities with his fans that helped to leverage fan engagement even more: the British

chef created online presences on Facebook $(6\mathrm{.}8$ mil$-$lion subscribers$),$ Twitter $(6\mathrm{.}75$

million followers$),$ YouTube $(4$ million subscribers$),$ Instagram $(7\mathrm{.}2$ million

subscribers$),$ and Pinterest $($more than $259,000$ followers$)\mathrm{.}116$ His strategy of

regularly adding relevant $($and even personal$)$ content, per$-$sonally contributing to

people$$s comments and discussions as well as listening and even reacting to trends

emerging from the community $($e$.$g$.,$ gluten$-$free$/$dairy$-$free cooking$)$ makes these

channels impactful, engaging, and attractive to users. However, the Briton also experienced strong criticism as not all his endeavours

met the approval of his entire fan base and certain statements created tension within it$.$ Jamie, for example, hurt traditional souls in $2016$ when he put forward the inclusion

of a particular kind of sausage $($chorizo$)$ in a Spanish Paella. His variation of the

classic dish was perceived as an insulting transgression and led to an outcry on social

media over cultural food traditions. Twitter users who felt provoked became

emotional sharing their confusion, upset, anger, and rage. The reactions even made

headlines in several leading British newspapers. In early $2018,$ Jamie$$s popu$-$larity

came under fire when a recipe for a cookie milkshake containing six times the

$2$

recommended daily sugar intake was published on his website. For his fans, he had

messed with the value of healthy food he personified. Even his admirable

commitment against childhood obesity went too far for some: nutritionists and

dieticians criticised the negative language used by him in the campaign $($e$.$g$.,$ war on

obesity$),$ whic