Annoyed, I sat watching MasterChef Australia 2024: 

oh nooo, not pulling those flattened clichés out of the closet again:

• It melts in the mouth
• It gives the warm feeling of home
• That is what comfort food is about
• You can taste that it comes straight out of your heart
• This is you on a plate

And yet, despite my grumbling, I regularly tune in to MasterChef Australia at home. Of the cooking programs (especially compared to the Dutch ones) it's cleverly filmed and edited, with lots of attention to setting, color, contrasts and compositions. And what's impressive is how the initially anonymous cooks develop into fascinating characters with surprising sides.

The cooks are carefully cast, with each character getting unique characteristics that are further developed: the somewhat insecure and naive Alex with her eternal grin, the smart and friendly Darrsh who works extremely hard, the limited motor skills of 'sausage roller' Pezza, the floating and wobbling Juan who compensates for his lack of cooking skills with crazy flavor combos, and the somewhat 'ordinary' Lachlan who still performs well every time. Then there are also Sumeet, the rock who gets everything done, and Nat who flashes through dishes in turbo mode with lots of flair, taste and precision.

You're effortlessly drawn into the stories and character development of these cooks. My grumbling about clichés disappears like snow in the sun as soon as I see how each character grows further during an episode. See the characters of MasterChef as perspectives on marketing your product: what do you stand for and from which angle do you deliver value, and do you contribute to the customer ambition so that the lives and business of those customers improve. Give your products a character that you develop well and continue to evolve, so you keep touching the customer emotionally, just like with the characters in MasterChef.

You also strengthen your own market position this way, just like MasterChef Australia does: be different from the American and Dutch cooking programs. Those work with static characters, or put the focus on the panel members, or give the maker the lead role.

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