A Match Made in Houmous Heaven: RAMONA’S and Recipe's Creative Collaboration
I first heard about RAMONA’S Heavenly Houmous when scrolling through TikTok. It was one of those increasingly infrequent moments where someone who hasn’t been paid to do so, was boasting about the product, purely for the sake of how great it is. Since then, I’ve heard the brand’s name travel through word of mouth praise; even having a friend insist RAMONA’S Heavenly Houmous make it onto our picnic shortlist a few weeks ago.
Whipping up the perfect houmous is a fine balancing act, and so too is finding a fitting partnership between brand and creative agency. We wanted to find out how the partnership between RAMONA'S and Recipe was conceived, developed and executed to keep brand authenticity and story front and centre.
Beginnings
Recipe is the independent creative agency with a long-running reputation for delivering exceptional campaigns. This collaboration was born out of established relationships and a shared vision for honest brand storytelling. Oya Mustafa, Recipe’s director of business development, told us how the opportunity arose through a deal brokered by SPP Media with ITV for a sponsorship slot on James Martin’s Saturday Morning. “Ella and Leigh at SPP Media picked up the phone and invited us to pitch for the creative against two other agencies.” Initially, Oya admits she was sceptical about the project. Coming from a Turkish-Cypriot background, Oya is no stranger to houmous herself. She fondly recalls the homemade houmous always readily available back home, noting, “store bought doesn’t cut it”.
Despite being impressed by the 290% reported growth in sales of RAMONA’S, she knew that she needed to buy into the product personally in order to be able to fully back it. It was time for the taste test. While the numbers were undeniable, “what I didn’t expect was the authentic taste, texture and flavour of RAMONA’S Heavenly Houmous to remind me of the houmous I abundantly enjoyed at home.” It was at this point the project began to evolve; “I was fully invested,” says Oya.
It’s funny, because it was that very same aversion to store-bought houmous that spurred founder, Ramona Hazan to start the company 20 years ago. Owing to her Egyptian-Turkish heritage, Ramona has a strong sense for what makes houmous "magical”; so when she first arrived in the UK, she couldn’t disguise her disappointment at what was on the shelves. “I felt like the houmous' on the market here wasn’t quite what I was expecting. They didn’t compare to the flavours I was used to enjoying. So I developed my own range using my family recipes,” she explains.
Ramona built her business by selling direct to trade, “Literally distributing tubs of homemade houmous myself to restaurants in central London; which snowballed,” she tells us. Glued to the promise of consistent quality, Ramona decided to take the product to market – and there’s no better indicator of quality than a repeat purchase rate of over 90%.
Starting with the Extra Mile
In typical Recipe style, the team not only worked to answer the brief with their usual due diligence, but made a commitment to supporting RAMONA’S on their brand journey. They began by structuring their efforts to provide tailored support. Becks came on board as executive creative director utilising her extensive experience in sponsorship and promotions to support creative director Vanessa, whose roster of clients includes household names like Audible and AutoTrader. Vanessa would also utilise Recipe’s in-house partnership specialists, enabling her to vet ideas for compliance before presenting them to RAMONA’S. "Recipe anticipated nearly every possible consideration from the compliance team at ITV which meant that we really didn’t have any major setbacks in development of ideas," Ramona tells us.
Next up was seasoned director, Michael O’Kelly, whose experience with first time advertisers, food, FMCG brands and commercial partnerships would make him an asset to the project. “He is passionate and magnetic,…we knew he would be the perfect person to hold Ramona’s (and the wider team's) hands at every stage of development, through to final delivery,” says Oya.
The team didn’t stop there. They planned ahead, supporting RAMONA’S in-house team with social strategy and digital media buys. “An easy win was capturing stills and footage from the shoot to be used on RAMONA’S owned social channels,” Oya says, which allowed them to maximise the use of their budget by utilising assets that wouldn’t make it into the final TV creative. Post-sponsorship, they brought in Jimmy, their social strategist to optimise both organic and paid media efforts alongside RAMONA’S and Recipe Media.
It’s this hybrid creative and strategic powerhouse that’s unique to Recipe’s model. It allowed them to leverage the full depth of their expertise with a dynamic, talented team that was perfectly sized and skilled to meet RAMONA’S current needs and growth stage as a consumer brand.
For Ramona, it was imperative to find a partner who mirrored her values, work ethic, passion, and commitment to her brand. For Andrew Dobson, Head of Sales and Marketing at RAMONA'S, it was important to find a partner with proven creative excellence who could deliver great work end-to-end and could navigate the nuances of sponsorship clearance with ITV. After getting to know the team at Recipe, she knew they were suited to the task. “What I hadn’t anticipated is the investment into our business beyond the sponsorship,” Ramona explains. “Oya made it clear that the agency backed us - professionally focusing on the sponsorship as a priority but as an agency, they weren’t approaching this as a ‘one off project’ that would end with the idents being delivered and aired. They were hungry from the onset and entrepreneurial about laying that groundwork down early which I really liked.”
Given that this was RAMONA’S first time venturing into large scale advertising, Recipe’s role extended beyond just delivering creative content; working to provide the essential support needed to navigate the complexities of advertising compliance, stakeholder expectations, and just plain nerves. As Oya explains, the key was to progress at a pace that was comfortable for the client, ensuring that Ramona, Andrew and the wider team felt heard and understood throughout the process.
Share the Love
Starting out, the team at Recipe knew that the synergy between editorial and brand needed to be explored. “James Martin’s Saturday Morning is filmed at his home and delivers inspirational recipes for the weekend, brilliant cooking hints and tips and celebrity guests. Ramona herself is all about sharing the love of food with friends and family, trying new recipes and bonding over an abundant table,” Oya tells us. “We unanimously agreed that a live action was the right approach to create a series of ‘Share The Love’ stories. The challenge would be to apply a ‘Not Normal’ lens to the category conventions and standard practices to sponsorship idents in a way that was affordable within the budgets we had available.”
The decision to use a one-shot filming technique was particularly ambitious. As Vanessa emphasised, this method would allow them to capture the energy and chaos of family meals; however, it would also leave little room for error. “It’s uncommon for this technique to be used for sponsorship creative,” explains Oya. “And for good reason – it’s complex and you have a limited window to get multiple shots for a series of idents to run in rotation over the course of the sponsorship period.” The team began by capturing both a vegetarian and meat scene in a single day. “This would mean that we would have enough copy rotations that would be relatable across the year, and of course show different usage occasions to promote the diversity of houmous usage,” says Oya. “It certainly wasn’t the easy route to take, but it was the right one.”
On Screen Debut
The choice to include Ramona herself in these narratives added a layer of trustworthiness that was crucial to the campaign’s success. Her natural charisma and love for the product shone through, making the brand’s message feel relatable and heartfelt. “Ramona is so beautifully…Ramona,” Oya tells us. “Vibrant, a bundle of energy, passionate, genuine, effervescent, curious, fun and as colourful as her brand colours and super intelligent.”
“Ramona, as the face of the brand, was also to feature in all idents,” explains Oya. But stepping in front of the camera was a new and somewhat daunting experience for Ramona, however the supportive environment created by the team at Recipe made the process enjoyable. “The director, Michael came over to me and said ‘I don’t need to show you what to do,’ and then two minutes later quickly came back and said that he did in fact need to give me some direction,” says Ramona. This light-hearted moment was all it took to set the tone for a day filled with laughter and genuine interactions – all of which translated beautifully on screen.
“She was, understandably, a little nervous, so taking the time to get to know her and explore how to relax on camera was fundamental. She was fantastic! Taking direction and adding her own ideas all the way through. The whole process was warm, engaging and passionate,” Oya tells us.
The filming didn’t go without its hiccups and the production itself was a logistical feat (let’s just say fitting a techno crane into a real home setting was a bit of a squeeze). But the team at Recipe came with buckets of experience and tight-knit know-how to make sure everything ran smoothly, despite the complexities involved. Unlike many food ads which hero the product, this campaign chose to focus on the more universal experience of sharing a meal. The end result is a series of short stories that work to not only showcase the deliciousness of the product, but the pure joy that is sharing food with those you love.
Good People, Great Work
Ultimately, this collaboration seems to embody the fullness of what makes Recipe what it is. As Oya reflects, “Recently, we articulated our agency’s essence to be ‘Good People, Great Work’ – because good people are impossible to forget, and great work is impossible to ignore.” The partnership with RAMONA’S is a testament to that philosophy, with both teams sharing a passion and commitment that extends far beyond the typical client-agency relationship. And the results speak for themselves: the impressive month-on-month sales uplift since the campaign’s launch is proof that the love and care infused into this project is resonating with consumers. In the end, it’s a match made in houmous heaven.
