Weight Watchers has opened a pop-up café in London for just a week, where the food is healthy and, if you share it on social media, free.

The Feel Good Café in Hoxton Square, East London, was launched off the back of research commissioned by Weight Watchers UK which revealed that women in the UK are confused when it comes to beginning a change in diet. Over half (52%) do not know how to begin their weight loss journey and only 8% feel confident about making healthier food choices.

The pop-up café is a tester for the company as it considers opening more across the country. The menu includes things one might expect from a typical café: Wraps, salads, flat bread pizza as well as Weight Watchers pre-packaged food products and nutritionally balanced hot meals like a Full English breakfast, but with Weight Watchers sausage and a poached egg instead of fried. The goal was to show people that eating healthy does not equal deprivation. The café acts as an introduction to both the brand and Weight Watchers’ products. Using social media not only helped announce the pop-up but encouraged people who may shy away from a Weight Watchers-branded café.

Using social media as currency is today’s way to capture peoples’ attention and there has been a huge rise in brands trading goods for social media engagement. During February’s New York Fashion Week, Marc Jacobs opened up a pop-up shop where customers could pay for goods with tweets. In a similar iteration to the Feel Good Café, a London pop-up restaurant, Birds Eye, allowed customers to settle the bill by sharing a picture of their food on Instagram.

Depending on the situation, social currency is both used by brands as a thank you to their loyal followers, or indeed as a way to get new fans and turn them into brands advocates. In the case of Marc Jacobs, it was a chance for the brand to say thank you with a Daisy perfume, but for Weight Watchers the campaign seems to be a way to get people to test products and sway them without forcing them to buy it in supermarkets. One is about gratitude, the other about knowledge but both are about providing consumers with new ways of interacting with the brands and feeling a sense of appreciation for the gift.

Via The Drum through PFSK