Case Study
Cookpanion / cookpanion.com
Cookpanion’s roots are in a home cook’s desire to better organize his personal recipe collection. Twelve23 was approached about bringing this vision to life in the form of a sophisticated recipe platform. Sam, the superstar client behind the original Cookpanion concept, felt there was no easy solution available for getting his recipes into a consistent format, managing and searching these recipes, using them to build grocery lists and meal plans, and most importantly, cook with them! After the highly successful launch of Cookpanion’s predecessor, KitchenMonki.com, Sam proposed to Twelve23 that the platform be adapted into an app poised to take advantage of the ultra-social Facebook platform. And so was born Cookpanion.
Our Approach
We dove head-first into the challenge of altering our previous success—Kitchen Monki–to conform to the uniquely specialized environment of Facebook. Ensuring that the app worked well within this social media framework was crucial. Our developers worked thoughtfully and creatively to successfully integrate standard Facebook conventions into the Cookpanion application, and ensure that the various tools contained within the app worked seamlessly with the social functioning of the underlying Facebook framework.
Brand Identity
Cookpanion was intended to feel very Facebook-native, and many of the design and branding decisions were made with this in mind. The colors, fonts, and graphics used throughout the app purposely take on a very “Facebook-y” feel to ensure that the user understands the app’s deep integration with the social media platform. After many iterations, were able to achieve a clean, contemporary, and user-friendly interface while still remaining consistent with Facebook’s brand identity.
Our Solution
Twelve23’s solution goal was the successful transformation of Kitchen Monki technology (the foundation of the Cookpanion app) into a Facebook-native recipe application with new and improved recipe planning tools, a refreshed user interface, and advanced social capabilities. In addition to the web and mobile app deliverables, our team has worked extensively with Sam on business strategy, product marketing, further product development, and everything in between. This has really been a full-fledged project that makes use of our entire skill set here at Twelve23. Since Cookpanion’s launch in February 2015, we’ve had exciting opportunities to share, market, and fine-tune our product due to its unique nature and the fact that there’s really nothing like it on the market. This is a project so close to all our hearts, and one that really demonstrates the passion and focus of our multitalented boutique agency.
Publisher App
Cookpanion publishers (Facebook pages, as opposed to individual users) are given a full administrative tool set to help them manage their Cookpanion “Recipes” page tab. The app contains a kit of custom widgets (think image sliders, featured recipe lists, advanced search filters, etc) that can be used by page administrators to enhance their Recipes profile and create a tailored user experience for page fans. The Recipe Manager—an iTunes for your recipes, if you will–makes it easy for admins to see, sort, group, and alter any and all recipes. Publishers also have the ability to alert fans of new recipe publications via Facebook-level notifications, a feature unique to our app, and unattainable with regular timline posts.
User App
Cookpanion publishers (Facebook pages, as opposed to individual users) are given a full administrative tool set to help them manage their Cookpanion “Recipes” page tab. The app contains a kit of custom widgets (think image sliders, featured recipe lists, advanced search filters, etc) that can be used by page administrators to enhance their Recipes profile and create a tailored user experience for page fans. The Recipe Manager—an iTunes for your recipes, if you will–makes it easy for admins to see, sort, group, and alter any and all recipes. Publishers also have the ability to alert fans of new recipe publications via Facebook-level notifications, a feature unique to our app, and unattainable with regular timline posts.
results
Cookpanion’s user base has grown to nearly 50,000 users and publishers since its beginnings as Kitchen Monki. We have over 4500 recipes, each composed of granular data including unique ingredients, measures, quantities, and search tags. Some of our more renouned publishers include Land O Lakes, King 5, and Skillet Street Food. We’ve seen a substantial spike in fan engagement on our publishers’ Facebook page posts as a result of the application, as well as increased page likes and rapid Cookpanion follower growth.