Known for its innovative marketing initiatives, the Brazilian arm of global mayonnaise brand Hellmann's has launched another engaging campaign, this time allowing customers to receive on-demand cooking advice from professional chefs via messaging app WhatsApp.

To participate in the WhatsCook campaign, launched at the end of May, amateur cooks simply entered their mobile phone numbers on the campaign website, and arranged a time to converse with a chef about a meal (featuring Hellmann's mayonnaise) that they needed assistance to prepare. As well as live chat, users could also communicate using WhatsApp's multimedia capabilities, allowing chefs to demonstrate complicated techniques via image or video.

The brand saw sales rocket by 70% when it trialled NFC-enabled shopping trolleys in Brazilian supermarkets last year. The trolleys recognised when a customer had placed a jar of the brand's mayonnaise in their carts and showed corresponding recipe ideas utilising food items from nearby aisles on the trolley's digital display.

As featured in Tech Recipes, in 2012 the brand launched the point-of-sale campaign Hellmann's Recipe Receipt in Brazilian supermarkets. The campaign saw the installation of software that recognised when a Hellmann's product was scanned, and then printed personalised recipes onto shopping receipts. Within the first month, sales had increased by 44% at participating stores.

As previously explored on Stylus, consumers are increasingly relying on tech-enabled, intelligent cooking tools to support food preparation – previous examples include the Smart Kitchen Scales and Smartphone-Controlled Cooker. For wider insight into this trend, take a look at Intelligent Food.

For more on how technology is impacting the grocery shopping experience, see Digitisation of the Supermarket and Tech-Enhanced Grocery.