Building on a recent Statistics Canada report that people spend on average 45 minutes less time at home daily than they did 20 years ago, Mississauga-based Duncan Hines Canada decided to launch a contest to lure Canadians back to the kitchen. The UrbanMoms.ca online community of 10,000+ Canadian women got involved, kicking in the results of its March survey, in which 60% of responding moms said they deliberately bake with their kids in order to spend some quality time together.
That’s why Hines and UrbanMoms.ca collaborated to launch the ‘Duncan Hines Cupcake Challenge’ last month, issuing an invitation to Canadians (not necessarily mothers) to post photos of their children making like chefs, plus their own tips on how to make family baking a special time. Janine Allen, a consultant with Toronto’s Veritas Communications, which handled all aspects of the initiative, says more than 1,500 unique hits – plus hundreds of photo submissions – flooded in during the brief contest.
The grand prize – a Duncan Hines canvas tote bag filled with a variety of cake mixes and frosting – may be modest. But achieving cyber fame for one’s little darlings . . . priceless. And, hey, if more cake mix gets purchased in the process, so be it.
