Jókai 200 · 2025
A new national day, started with thirteen cooks and one soup everyone makes differently.
Jókai Bableves Napja, 16 March 2025: a campaign to turn the bean soup that carries the writer’s name into an annual day. A creative concept and recipe, eleven social pieces over eight days and three animated films. The thirteen food creators who cooked on the day have their own case study.
The challenge
Jókai bableves is the one thing almost every Hungarian knows with the writer’s name on it, and every household makes it differently. The bicentenary wanted a day people would keep, not a post they would scroll past: a Jókai Bean Soup Day, on 16 March, that could return every year.
Mór Jókai died in 1904. Most of the audience had never read him, but most of them had eaten the soup.
The approach
The concept came first: celebrate the writer’s birthday year with a bowl of his soup, under two lines. Ahány ház, annyi Jókai, as many Jókais as there are houses. And Jókai bableves. Egy történet, amit mindenki máshogy mesél, a story everyone tells differently. A recipe card set the reference version, smoked knuckle, beans and csipetke included.
The social run started five days out: three teaser posts and three stories on 11 March, an animated ingredients post on the 12th, a reel on the 14th for the gastro bus taking the original soup around the country, a three-slide recipe carousel on the 15th, an 85-second animated film on the day, and on the 18th a post asking whether we would meet again on 16 March 2026.
On the day itself thirteen Hungarian food creators cooked or ate the soup on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook with their own stories and recipes, using the campaign’s graphics and colours. Their content was approved before the 16th, published that Sunday, and reported back by the 20th.
The work
Films
12 March: the ingredients, animated 14 March: the gastro bus reel
The results
The day happened, and the campaign closed by naming the next one, 16 March 2026. What the thirteen creators reached on the day is on the influencer campaign’s own page.
What we delivered
- Creative concept and the two campaign lines
- Recipe card and event cover
- Eleven social pieces, 11 to 18 March: posts, stories, a carousel and a reel
- Three animated films, including the 85-second film for the day
- Brief, assets and timing for the thirteen food creators (their campaign has its own page)
- Campaign report to the programme
Related projects
All work
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