Picture this. You and your best friends go to a new fancy restaurant to try the amazing food you’ve been seeing all over social media. Sure enough, once you get there, most of your friends (if not all of them) get their phones out of their pockets and try to take a perfect picture of the food. No matter how delicious it may smell, or how hungry you may feel. Yes, while over 69% of us can’t resist to start ‘foodstagramming’ the hell out of the feast in front of us, this popular trend often occurs at someone else’s expense. And we’re not talking about the person paying the bill. We’re talking about our dining companions and other diners.

Which is why—according to Belgian sparkling water producer Bru—82% of us find this new habit annoying. And that’s why Bru mineral water decided to create the Bru Social Plates. These special food trays come with a mission – to remind diners to enjoy not only their food, but also each other’s company. How can a plate do that? The answer is simple: QR codes.

Bru Social Plates | Click to enlarge

Well, it’s not that simple, but you get the gist. Bru’s handmade plates feature a delicate printed pattern that hides a secret QR code. The code then sends a message to everyone who tries to take photos of their food rather than talking to their friends and eating their meal. The plates communicate directly with the smartphones’ camera and appear right on their screen.

So, the moment ‘foodstagrammers’ point their mobile phone camera at the rich plate, they see a message from Bru on the screen: ‘Nice photo! But don’t forget to enjoy your dining companions as well.’

The Bru Social Plates were conceived and designed by creative connectivity agency Happiness Brussels, an FCB Alliance, and are handmade by the ceramic designer Martine Keirsebilck. Happiness is a creative connectivity agency based in Brussels, Belgium, and Saigon, Vietnam. The agency is well known to design-connected brands that trigger emotions that trigger business. This time they also cleverly trigger iPhone’s built-in feature.

The power of this tasty campaign comes from the simplicity of using the built-in QR reader that comes as standard on most phones since 2017. Yes, no annoying apps or downloads are needed this time. Just your ‘foodstagramming’ friends…

Actually, Bru launched the ‘Bru Table Mode’ movement back in September 2018, as an incentive to get rid of the smartphones being used at the dinner tables, so that restaurant visitors can fully focus on each other. The campaign immediately received strong support by various restaurants across Belgium. You can still easily recognise the participating businesses by a sticker on their front door: ‘This restaurant is in Bru Table Mode’.

Later that year in October, Bru, the Brussel-based agency Happiness, and chef Tom van Lysebettens from the Ghent restaurant ‘Cochon de Luxe’ went one step further and created the ‘Bru Table Mode Menu‘. This 8-course menu came specially plated – on the back of the customers’ smartphone. Just watch the video below for some tasty phone dishes!

Now, if you want to use the Bru Social Plates at your restaurant or even home—to perhaps make your kids put away their phones—the special dishes are available for restaurants and individuals on Bru’s official website: bru.be.

The first registrations received the plates for free and over 150 restaurants requested them in the 3 days following their launch. So, hurry up before they are gone for good and you’ll have to put up with your friends taking minutes to set up a perfect food photo!


Credits:
Agency: Happiness, an FCB alliance
City: Brussels, Belgium
Client: Bru
Executive Creative Management: Karen Corrigan
Chief Creative Officer: Geoffrey Hantson
Creative Director: Katrien Bottez
Concept Developers: Toon Vanpoucke, Morgane Choppinet
Copy Fr: Alice Amant, Catherine Quadens
Account Team: Nathalie Marchand, Camille Martin-Schmets, Amandine Donckers Agency
Producer: Sophie Gunsbourg
Editing: Simon Schuurman
Director of photography: Kassim Olivier
Director: Kassim Olivier
Design: Dries Lauwers, Lisa Leloux
DTP: Kassandra Donia
Retoucher: Xavier Dockx