How ITC Frozen Foods Doubled AI Visibility in 60 Days with AEO
ITC MasterChef went from a marginal mention to a top-3 recommended frozen food brand across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini using a 4-phase AEO strategy.
The Challenge
ITC MasterChef is one of India's leading frozen food brands. As consumers increasingly ask AI assistants for meal ideas and product recommendations, ITC needed to ensure their frozen food range appeared in these AI-generated answers — a channel traditional SEO couldn't reach.
Despite being a household name in Indian retail, ITC Frozen Foods was nearly invisible in AI search results. With a Brand Mention Frequency of just 0.96% and an average position of 4th place, competitors were consistently recommended ahead of ITC in queries like 'best frozen snacks in India' and 'quick frozen meal options'.
Growth Dashboard
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand Mention Frequency | 0.96% | 1.81% | +89% (nearly 2x) |
| Share of Voice | 0.18% | 0.34% | +67% |
| Average Position | 3.96 (4th) | 3.35 (3rd) | Up 1 rank |
| Sentiment Score | 56/100 | 59/100 | Stable positive |
| Negative Mentions | 0 | 0 | 100% brand safe |
Implementation Timeline
Reddit & Community Earned Media
Week 1–2- Identified high-intent Reddit threads for frozen food recommendations
- Engaged authentically in cooking and meal-prep communities
- Created organic citation signals for AI model training data
- Jumpstarted brand mention frequency from 0.96% baseline
Recipe Seeding on UGC Platforms
Week 3–4- Published ITC-branded recipes on Cookpad and Tarla Dalal
- Optimized recipe content for AI query patterns
- Created contextual utility — answering 'What can I cook?' queries
- Built domain authority through food content ecosystem
Digital Ground Truth Optimization
Week 5–6- Updated marketplace listings on Amazon, BigBasket, Swiggy Instamart
- Encouraged and structured positive product reviews
- Standardised brand entity data across all digital touchpoints
- Bolstered sentiment score to maintain 100% positive mentions
Content Refinement — GEO Structure
Week 7–8- Reformatted all content headers into direct questions
- Added FAQ schema targeting AI query patterns
- Structured product pages with Q&A blocks (e.g., 'How to make snacks with ITC Frozen Corn?')
- Directly responsible for 15% improvement in Average Position
The ASVA Solution
Using ASVA AI's Visibility Tracker and Citation Intelligence, ITC implemented a 4-phase AEO campaign over 60 days: Phase 1 — Reddit community engagement in high-intent threads; Phase 2 — Recipe seeding on UGC platforms like Cookpad with ITC-branded recipes; Phase 3 — Digital Ground Truth optimization across marketplace listings and reviews; Phase 4 — Content restructuring with AEO-optimized headers and Q&A format to directly match AI query patterns.
"ASVA opened our eyes to a channel we didn't know existed. Within weeks, our frozen food range went from being invisible to being recommended by ChatGPT. The senior leadership recognised this as a breakthrough moment for ITC's digital strategy — we're now scaling AEO across the entire portfolio."
ASVA Tools Used
Key Lessons
AI answers are not static — strategic content placement changes what models recommend within weeks
Community-driven content (Reddit, recipes) creates lasting 'memory' in AI retrieval context
Structured Q&A headers directly improve average position in list-based AI answers
Maintaining 100% positive sentiment is achievable with proactive brand monitoring