Podravka: Empowering users to make healthy choices with an engaging AI-assistant
Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, C3 Croatia-01 Content & Technology, and Infobip
18%
conversion rate to engaged user
343k
messages exchanged in first 90 days
Challenge:
Empower users to make healthier food choices while simultaneously enhancing customer experience
Podravka is a European leader in the food industry that brings innovative ideas to life to offer customers better experiences. In the endeavor to create unique food experiences for users, they launched Coolinarika, a mobile and web app, that offers users thousands of recipes right at their fingertips. The success of Coolinarika lead to it becoming the largest culinary platform in Croatia with over 700,000 monthly users.
Recent studies show that obesity rates in Croatia are on the rise in adults and children.
65%
of adults are overweight
35%
of children are overweight
Their passion for healthy food and innovative experiences drove the Podravka team to start to think about how they could have a positive impact on these concerning statistics. With their wide reach to homes across the country, they knew they had the opportunity to help people make more responsible and healthy food choices. To do this they needed to provide an innovative experience on their platform that could educate users through a conversational approach.
We wanted to make social impact and spark a transformation – in how Coolinarika users and broader Croatian community think about food, how they use technology to make healthier choices, and how Coolinarika constantly evolves to meet these emerging needs.
Our objective was to reinforce Coolinarika’s position as a relevant partner in the journey towards a healthier lifestyle. We aimed to demonstrate our understanding of our users’ needs, not only in the context of healthy eating but also in how emerging technologies are reshaping user expectations and user experience.
Ksenija Latković Kozarac
Digital communications director at Podravka
To achieve this goal, they needed to partner with a communications technology provider who could help them develop this experience with minimal effort from their side.
The communications partner had to meet the criteria of:
- Having a solid track record in developing and launching intelligent chatbots
- Experimenting and mastering the latest AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology
- Seamlessly integrating with Podravka’s existing systems, databases, and applications
- Providing multiple messaging platforms, websites, and communication channels
- Offering a user-friendly and smooth experience
- Offering excellent support, response times, and guaranteeing fast assistance when needed
After a thorough search, Podravka decided to partner with Infobip to build a custom chatbot solution that could help bring their vision to life.
Solution:
An engaging AI assistant to help customers find healthy recipes and anticipate their needs
Through a three-way partnership between Infobip, Azure OpenAI Service, and digital agency C3 Croatia – 01 Content & Technology and by leveraging LLM technology with Coolinarika databases, SuperfoodChef-AI was born.
Podravka was drawn to Infobip’s drive to innovate with AI solutions and enhance brand communication and relationships with customers to help businesses reach their goals. C3 Croatia’s team of awarded and experienced AI and UX experts and designers developed an in-depth concept for the AI solution including:
- Functionalities
- Tone-of-voice
- Design and content adaptation
- Communication strategy
With the concept in place and Podravka’s goal of creating an AI-powered conversational experience, our Professional Services, CX Consultancy, and AI experts in partnership with 01 Content & Technology experts came together to create the custom solution that would understand and anticipate the needs of their customers, send accurate nutritional information, and educate users on healthy recipes.
For example, if a user wanted to find a recipe for a carrot cake, the chatbot would be able to provide them with a link to a relevant recipe on the Coolinarika website or app. They would also get an engaging message with a summary of the recipe so the user would know if it’s right for them.
The generative AI assistant was custom built on our chatbot building platform Answers through collaboration of all three partners, who designed and trained the intelligent chatbot for exactly what Podravka was looking for.
Now when users open the Coolinarika website or app, they can converse with two AI assistants through the SuperfoodChef-AI chatbot. The first is like an AI chef that can quickly offer relevant recipes from a database of 500 recipes based on the user’s request and the other is an AI nutritionist who can educate and inform users on 80 different foods and how to use them in their diet. With further development, Podravka plans to expand the knowledge of SuperfoodChef-AI to offer users an even wider range of recipes and nutritional information.
The generative AI solution makes navigating Coolinarika’s website and app simpler by offering users a fast and accurate way to find what they are looking for and educate users on healthy eating and lifestyle habits that can change the way they approach food.
Croatians are among the most overweight nations in the EU. In order to help Coolinarika address this issue our mission was simple: to create a cutting-edge AI-powered solution that understands users’ needs, promotes healthier choices, maintains trust, enhances personalization, and empowers well-being. The methods that our teams used while creating the strategy and creative solution include nudge architecture, human-centered design, service design, premium native advertising and agile development.
Ana Plišić
Partner and Creative Director at C3 Croatia
By combining generative AI and machine learning, our team at Infobip managed to achieve 100% accuracy in the generated links for recipes. The chatbot can accurately send multiple recipe suggestions based on the users’ prompt. This is not an easy feat, as generative AI tends to hallucinate and provide incorrect information when not trained properly.
A user-friendly AI chatbot was swiftly launched for the Coolinarika platform in under a month. Personalized support and training were at the heart of our partnership with Podravka from the start to ensure an effortless and supportive customer experience.
Result:
40% more Gen Z and Millennials active on Coolinarika
In the first 90 days, 343,792 messages were exchanged between the SuperfoodChef-AI chatbot and 101,429 users. Users were actively engaging with the AI chatbot which led to a nearly 18% conversion rate to engaged users (sending more than one message per conversation).
18%
conversion rate to engaged user
7 messages
sent on average by engaged users
3 minute
conversations on average with engaged user
Coolinarika also saw a 31% increase in overall time spent on their site compared to before the chatbot was launched. Interestingly, the chatbot was significantly popular with Gen Z and Millennials:
40%
more active users aged 25-34
39%
more time spent on Coolinarika for users aged 25-34
This solution speaks to these generations as they tend to prefer self-service digital solutions and conversational experiences from brands. Their active engagement with the AI chatbot shows promise that younger generations who are leaving home or perhaps starting families are actively engaging and looking for healthier recipes and nutritional information that they can incorporate into their diets at home.
To engage further with Gen Z and Millennials, Coolinarinka took to TikTok during their campaign to promote the AI chatbot and partnered with three popular Gen Z influencers in Croatia to strengthen their reach to an audience of over 37,000 TikTok users.
Our aim was to utilize Coolinarika’s extensive dataset on healthy eating to forge a deeper emotional connection with users, particularly Gen Z users. This demographic is at the forefront of health and technology trends. We have managed to successfully expand our Gen Z user base already in this short period of time and make Coolinarika an integral part of their daily lives and active ally in healthier eating habits
Ksenija Latković Kozarac
Digital communications director at Podravka
Although the SuperfoodChef-AI chatbot saw promising results from the start, Podravka isn’t ready to stop there. They aim to pursue these lasting partnerships to continue the development of this AI chatbot and grow this solution to bring more value to their users’ experience with their brand, and perhaps start to see an impact on the health and wellness of adults and children in Croatia in the future.
Company profile:
About Podravka
Podravka Group is a Croatian multinational company headquartered in Koprivnica. It operates in two segments, Food (Podravka Inc. Koprivnica, Žito Ltd. Ljubljana, Mirna Inc., Rovinj) and Pharmaceuticals (Belupo Inc. Koprivnica), with a portfolio of more than 1,800 products. It exports to more than 60 countries around the world and has its own distribution network in 16 of them. The Podravka Group operates in accordance with the principles of sustainability and is an innovative leader with a number of strong brands in its portfolio, such as Vegeta, Dolcela, Podravka, Žito, Zlato polje, Lino, Eva, Neofen, Lupocet and many others.
