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BigBon Makes Instant Noodles Feel Like a Luxury Ritual
BigBon's "How To Cook Luxury Instant Noodles?" campaign repositions the brand's premium Tien Shan instant noodle line as a genuinely indulgent product through a humorous film series featuring a wealthy Asian character named Mr. How To Cook, produced by BBDO CA and published in Kazakhstan in June 2023.
BigBon is a well-established instant noodles brand in Kazakhstan. The brand carries a premium sub-line called Tien Shan — named after the mountain range that spans Central Asia — which includes distinct Ramen and WOK flavours requiring more deliberate preparation than a standard instant noodle product. The challenge facing the campaign was clear: a conventional how-to-cook noodles tutorial would neither hold attention nor communicate the elevated positioning the Tien Shan range deserved. Rather than produce a functional preparation video, BBDO CA developed a character-driven film format that uses comedy as the vehicle for education. The result is two film executions — one for Tien Shan Ramen and one for Tien Shan WOK — each built around Mr. How To Cook, an opulent, self-assured Asian man who shares the secrets to cooking these special noodles as though they are the cornerstone of his extraordinary lifestyle. The campaign targets consumers in Kazakhstan who already recognise BigBon as a household name and invites them to see the Tien Shan line through an entirely different lens: not as a convenience product, but as an accessible luxury ritual. The objective was dual-purpose — drive product awareness and shift brand perception simultaneously, using entertainment rather than instruction as the primary mechanism.
BigBon identified a structural problem with the noodle tutorial genre before a single frame was shot. Standard preparation videos are brief, utilitarian and largely interchangeable across competing brands — they communicate method but create no emotional connection and generate no lasting brand recall. In Kazakhstan's competitive packaged food environment, where global instant noodle giants such as Nissin Foods and Indofood's Indomie brand maintain international presence alongside regional players, a purely functional campaign risked disappearing into category noise.
The strategic insight driving the campaign is that humour is a powerful differentiator in food advertising precisely because it generates the kind of voluntary engagement that tutorial content alone cannot sustain. By framing the Tien Shan premium ramen and WOK lines as the secret indulgence of a visibly successful, eccentric man — Mr. How To Cook — BBDO CA gave Kazakhstani consumers a reason to watch the full video, share it and remember which brand it advertised. The character works as a mnemonic device: viewers who cannot immediately recall the product name can recall the wealthy Asian man and the noodles, which accomplishes the awareness objective even at second-hand recall. The global instant noodles market was estimated at approximately 25.3 billion US dollars in 2023 with a compound annual growth rate of 3.9 percent through 2030, according to ResearchAndMarkets as reported by Business Wire. Asia-Pacific accounts for approximately 60 percent of global instant noodle consumption, according to MarketResearch.biz. While no verified public market-size figure for Kazakhstan's instant noodles segment is available, the country sits within the broader Central Asian consumption landscape where instant noodles occupy a central position in everyday food culture — making BigBon's premium repositioning both timely and strategically sound.
Director Kostya Sobol helms both film executions, bringing a visual language more closely associated with aspirational lifestyle content than packaged food advertising. The campaign's creative direction is led by Igor Golushko, with art direction by Renat Poposhev and copywriting by Kolya Shkoda. Account management is handled by Kseniya Zhanokova. The production team's collective decision to invest in premium noodle tutorial aesthetics — rich set design, deliberate pacing, and a performance-led central character — is what separates these films from the category's standard output.
Mr. How To Cook functions as both host and comic device. The character is wealthy, unhurried and entirely committed to the premise that preparing BigBon Tien Shan instant noodles is a matter of some personal philosophy. The humorous campaign derives its energy from the contrast between the character's grand self-presentation and the domestic simplicity of cooking instant noodles — a tension the audience recognises immediately and finds genuinely funny. The art direction by Renat Poposhev ensures the visual language of luxury is present in every frame: the sets, the wardrobe and the character's manner of address all reinforce the idea that Tien Shan premium ramen and WOK are products worth taking seriously. The copywriting by Kolya Shkoda sustains the comedic register without sacrificing the product education function — viewers learn how to cook the noodles for maximum flavour while being entertained throughout. The campaign contains two media assets across its film medium format, with each execution tailored to a specific Tien Shan product: one film addresses Ramen preparation and the other addresses WOK. The resulting work is a rare example of a noodle tutorial that functions as entertainment in its own right.
The campaign achieved measurable recognition within the Central Asian creative industry. BigBon's "How To Cook Luxury Instant Noodles?" won Silver at the Jolbors Festival Awards 2023 in the Film Craft category, specifically for Art Direction and Production Design, according to Jolbors. The campaign also appeared on the Jolbors 2023 shortlist across the Online Video, Marketing, and SMM and Digital Media categories, according to Jolbors. The Jolbors Festival is Kazakhstan's leading advertising and creative industry awards programme, making recognition at this level a meaningful indicator of regional creative standing.
No independently verified viewership figures or brand-lift metrics for the campaign are publicly available at this time. What the award outcomes do confirm is that the campaign's production craft — the precise area where BBDO CA made its most deliberate creative investment — was judged exceptional by industry peers in Kazakhstan. The Silver win for Art Direction and Production Design is a direct validation of Renat Poposhev's visual approach and Kostya Sobol's direction. Structurally, the campaign succeeds because it resolves a genuine creative problem: it makes a category-generic format, the how-to-cook noodles tutorial, memorable, shareable and brand-specific. The character of Mr. How To Cook gives the Tien Shan premium ramen and WOK lines a consistent face and a tonal identity that cannot be replicated by competitors without obvious imitation. Clapboard rates this campaign 63 out of 100, reflecting strong creative concept and craft execution balanced against limited verifiable consumer performance data in the public domain.
BigBon's "How To Cook Luxury Instant Noodles?" is a 2023 film campaign by BBDO CA in Kazakhstan promoting the premium Tien Shan instant noodle line. It introduces Mr. How To Cook, a wealthy, humorous Asian man who teaches noodle preparation as a luxury ritual, repositioning BigBon Tien Shan as an indulgent rather than purely convenient product.
BBDO CA, based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, created the campaign. Director Kostya Sobol led production. Creative Director Igor Golushko, Art Director Renat Poposhev, Copywriter Kolya Shkoda, and Account Manager Kseniya Zhanokova comprised the core team behind the humorous campaign for BigBon's premium Tien Shan ramen and WOK lines.
Mr. How To Cook is a fictional character central to the BigBon Tien Shan campaign. He is portrayed as a wealthy, comedic Asian man who presents instant noodle preparation as the secret to his luxurious lifestyle. The character functions as both a humorous device and a memorable brand ambassador for BigBon's premium noodle range in Kazakhstan.
The campaign won Silver at the Jolbors Festival Awards 2023 for Film Craft in Art Direction and Production Design, according to Jolbors. It also appeared on the Jolbors 2023 shortlist in Online Video, Marketing, and SMM and Digital Media categories. Jolbors is Kazakhstan's principal advertising industry awards programme.
The campaign promotes two products within BigBon's premium Tien Shan line: Tien Shan Ramen and Tien Shan WOK. Each product has its own dedicated film execution. Both are positioned as special-preparation instant noodles requiring more deliberate cooking than standard BigBon products, reinforcing the luxury and indulgence messaging throughout the campaign.
Clapboard rates the BigBon "How To Cook Luxury Instant Noodles?" campaign 63 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative concept execution and production craft, recognised by a Silver win at the Jolbors Festival Awards 2023, balanced against the absence of publicly verified consumer performance or viewership data for the Kazakhstan market.
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