This is a blog post about cheese. I know, random. But seriously, there is a good reason for it. Brand Facebook pages, for the most part, annoy the crap out of me. Its really just a stack of unwanted content littering your Facebook feed. Sometimes someone creates a gem but on most days it is pretty much your stock standard stuff. Food Brands especially. Look, here’s a really impressive picture of a meal or here’s a recipe.
Cool story bro.
That was until I found out that LANCEWOOD (that’s a cheese, just FYI) is using a bot on their page. Yup, a real life Facebook bot. I obviously couldn’t get there fast enough to try it out. Pretty simple really. You private message the bot with a food emoji and the bot replies with emoji meals. It pairs your selected food emoji to a suitable recipe (that conveniently uses a LANCEWOOD product obviously) and then sends you the recipe. If you like the sound of it you simply click ingredients and it will message you what you need. You can click method and it will message that through as well. How clever?
The South African braai
Because of LANCEWOOD’s sponsorship of some or other local reality show (I don’t watch much TV any more so I couldn’t tell you much more) there is an awesome link to a very South African tradition: The braai. Or barbecue if you insist on being difficult. All the Emoji Meals the bot replies with are linked to a braai in someway. From the best braai salads to desserts to actual clever braai tips, the Facebook bot seems to know it all.
I decided to test it out and started by sending it the eggplant emoji (because yes, I am a 13 year old boy sometimes). This was the response:
I then wanted to try catch it out and sent through a glass of wine. The response wasn’t as clever as I thought it could be but still:
Finally I sent a cookie and got this clever recipe in response:
The recipes change and the bot is really fun and interactive. Such a clever and useful way to tie in a food product to your Facebook page. The Emoji Meals also look pretty darn delicious.
