From a catering idea to a credible cultural food brand

Persian Feast

Helping a new Persian food business shape its offer, reach the right audience and turn its first event into a foundation for growth.

Persian Feast started with a clear idea: bringing authentic Persian food to people in the Netherlands. Zahra already had the recipes, food knowledge and cultural background to make the offer authentic. But as an early-stage catering business, the next challenge was to clarify “who the business should reach, what would make people choose it, and how Persian Feast could offer value beyond a catering order.”

Since May 2026, I’ve worked with Zahra to develop that idea into a more tangible brand and customer experience — “connecting audience research, product and menu development, brand and experience positioning, campaign strategy, social media, visual communication, event activation and customer experience.”

The goal was not simply to promote a catering service or create a memorable cultural dining experience. It was to build a foundation for brand awareness and credibility, audience engagement, customer acquisition, future orders and longer-term business growth.

By bringing together food, culture, storytelling and thoughtful marketing communication, the project explored how Persian Feast could move from a catering concept towards a more distinctive cultural food brand — introducing its offer to new audiences, creating additional value around the food experience, and using real customer interaction and feedback to inform future development.

The Business challenge —

The food was authentic. The opportunity was to make the value of the business clearer.

Persian Feast already had a strong starting point: authentic Persian food, recipes and cultural knowledge.

But having a good product was only part of the challenge. As an early-stage business, Persian Feast needed to understand how to turn those strengths into a proposition that people could recognise, trust and experience.

Several strategic questions needed to be answered.

Who are the primary and secondary audiences?
Rather than assuming who would be interested in Persian Feast, we needed to identify and validate “who the business should primarily speak to, who could become a secondary audience, and what different motivations might bring them to the brand.”
How do we build credibility?
As a new business, Persian Feast needed to establish trust and demonstrate the quality, authenticity and value behind the offer — giving people a reason to discover, experience and eventually order from the brand.
How do we build brand awareness?
Persian Feast needed to move beyond simply offering Persian food and develop a recognisable concept that could introduce the business to new audiences and create curiosity around Persian food and culture.
How do we create additional value?
The opportunity was bigger than catering alone. Food could become a gateway to culture, storytelling and connection — creating an experience and a reason for people to engage with Persian Feast beyond a single meal or order.

It could provide an opportunity to “test the offer, learn about the audience, build credibility, gather feedback and identify opportunities for future events and catering relationships.”

The challenge was therefore not simply to promote a catering service, but to turn an authentic food offering into a more tangible brand and customer experience — one that could build awareness and credibility, connect with the right audiences, create additional value and lay the foundation for future growth.

How I Solved It

I worked with Zahra from both the audience and business perspective — not only asking how to create a successful event, but also how the experience could help clarify the brand, reach the right people, build credibility and create a foundation for future development.

The process connected: Audience → Offer → Positioning → Campaign → Experience → Learning

01 — Who should Persian Feast speak to?
Before developing the campaign, we needed to understand who Persian Feast should be speaking to. Rather than assuming a single target audience, we explored potential primary and secondary audiences, their interests, motivations and possible barriers to engaging with Persian food and culture. These insights helped inform:

the event format
campaign messaging
communication channels
customer journey
content direction
the overall experience

The aim was to make the experience relevant not only to people already familiar with Persian culture, but also to people who might be discovering it for the first time.These insights helped inform the event format, messaging, communication channels and customer journey — making the experience more relevant to the people we wanted to reach.

02 — Shape the offer beyond catering

What should Persian Feast offer?
Persian Feast already had an authentic foundation: food, recipes and cultural knowledge. The opportunity was to turn these assets into a more tangible and differentiated offer. Rather than positioning Persian Feast simply as a catering service or dinner, we developed the pilot as a cultural food experience.

Food became the entry point into: Persian traditions → hospitality → storytelling → connection

This created additional value around the meal itself and helped explore how Persian Feast could evolve from a catering business into a broader cultural food brand.

The Strategic Idea

Food is the entry point. Culture is the added value.

Persian Feast did not need to compete only on food. Its authentic recipes and cultural knowledge created an opportunity to offer something more distinctive: a food experience that people could taste, understand and remember.

This gave the brand a reason to engage people before, during and after the meal — while creating a format that could potentially evolve into future cultural experiences, events and catering opportunities.

03 — Build the customer journey

How do we turn interest into participation?
I translated the concept into a campaign and customer journey connecting: Awareness → Discovery → Registration → Participation → Follow-up

The communication needed to do more than announce an event. It needed to answer five practical questions:

Why should I be interested?
What makes this experience different?
What can I expect?
Why should I trust Persian Feast
What should I do next?

The campaign therefore balanced cultural storytelling, practical information and business objectives — building awareness while creating opportunities for customer acquisition and future orders.

04 — Create the communication
I developed and supported the campaign content and visual communication across different touchpoints, including social media, event descriptions, promotional copy, email communication, invitations, feedback messages and printed materials.

The aim was to create a consistent story across every stage of the customer journey.

05 — Bring the story to life
The campaign continued beyond digital communication and into the physical experience.

Food, storytelling, cultural details, recipe cards and on-site communication were brought together to create a cohesive experience — from the first invitation to the shared table.

This was important for building credibility: instead of only telling people what Persian Feast could offer, the event gave them an opportunity to experience it first-hand.

The experience Khaan-e Avval: The Arrival of Autumn

The first Persian Feast gathering brought guests together around Persian food, culture and storytelling.

The experience was designed to introduce guests to Persian culinary traditions while creating an intimate and welcoming atmosphere for sharing food and stories. Rather than simply presenting a menu, the event encouraged guests to discover, taste, listen and connect.

Printed recipe cards extended the experience beyond the event, giving guests something tangible to take home and continue the story.

The experience was designed as: Discover → Taste → Listen → Share → Remember → Take something home

* Event video of Khaan-e Avval: The Arrival of Autumn on Instagram

06 — Learn and evolve

What can we learn and improve?
Because Persian Feast was still developing its offer, the first event was treated as a market-learning opportunity, not simply a finished campaign.

We looked at:

Audience: Who responded and what created interest?
Offer: Which parts of the experience created value?
Communication: Which messages and content attracted attention?
Experience: What did participants respond to once they were there?
Future opportunities: What could be developed into future events, catering opportunities or customer relationships?

Audience responses, participation and participant feedback helped identify what resonated and what could be improved.

This created a practical development cycle: Listen → Create → Activate → Learn → Improve

The event therefore became more than a one-off campaign. It became a way to test the offer, communication and customer experience with a real audience.

What I brought to the project —

Brand & Marketing: Audience research and thinking, Brand and experience positioning, Campaign strategy, Customer journey thinking, Business and customer-growth perspective.
Campaigns & Experiences: Event concept development, Campaign messaging, Promotional strategy, Community activation, Event storytelling, Participant journey.
Visual Communication: Digital campaign assets, Event communication materials, On-site communication, Supporting digital and physical visual content.
Community & Engagement: Audience invitations, Community outreach, Partnership activation, Participant feedback, Future-event development.

Beyond the event

The pilot was treated as a starting point for building the catering brand, rather than a one-off event.

Before the event, audience feedback and campaign responses helped shape the format, communication and content.

Afterwards, participant feedback provided valuable insights into what resonated with the audience and what could be improved for future gatherings.

This created a continuous cycle: Listen → Create → Activate → Learn → Improve

The approach allowed Persian Feast to learn from a real customer experience while building a foundation for future events, catering opportunities and customer relationships.

Impact —
from concept to customer experience

The project helped Persian Feast move from a catering concept to a tangible customer experience.

More importantly, it connected the business’s existing strengths — authentic food and cultural knowledge — with a clearer

brand, audience and customer experience.

Brand: From catering concept → cultural food experience
The pilot gave Persian Feast a tangible way to express the connection between food, culture, storytelling and hospitality.

Audience: From assumptions → real audience learning

The experience created an opportunity to engage potential audiences, observe responses and gather feedback that could inform future development.

Marketing: From campaign activity → measurable reach

The campaign created a clear uplift in Instagram performance:

+132% increase in highest post views, from 3,801 to 8,859
+2,500 views consistently achieved across campaign posts, compared with 600+ previously
+350% increase in minimum likes, from 12 to 54
+15% increase in highest likes, from 289 to 333

Business foundation

The project created a platform to:

Introduce Persian Feast to a new audience
Build awareness around the brand
Build credibility through a real customer experience
Explore and validate audience responses
Create additional value through food, culture and storytelling
Attract potential new customers
Test the offer and communication with a live audience
Gather customer insights for future development
Create opportunities for future events and catering relationships

From Communication to Experience

The most important outcome was not simply the increase in social media numbers.

The project connected communication with real customer experience — and created a pathway from awareness to potential orders.

People could discover Persian Feast through social media, understand the story behind the offer, experience the food, hospitality and culture first-hand, and develop a reason to engage with the brand beyond a single event.

Persian Feast started with authentic food and cultural knowledge.

The project helped turn those assets into something people could see, understand, experience and respond to — building awareness and credibility while creating opportunities to develop customer relationships and bring future catering orders.

The first event therefore became more than a promotional activity. It became a real-world test of the brand proposition, audience, communication and customer experience — giving Persian Feast both a tangible experience to build on and insights to guide its next stage of development, including future events, customer relationships and catering orders.

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