2021 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

CHALLENGE
KD leads the Mac & Cheese category and has been known as Canada’s unofficial official food for decades. The brand was in the midst of developing a new line of Flavour Boosts - an additional sachet of flavoured seasoning powder to be mixed into your KD - when it got word that Cheetos was launching a flavoured Mac & Cheese product.

The brand and its agency Rethink needed to find a way to keep the attention on KD and win the flavour conversation with consumers.

INSIGHT
The flavour the team created had to be bold and the way they brought it to market had to be even bolder. Enter Pumpkin Spice KD.

Pumpkin Spice is the undisputed queen of fall flavours so naturally, it was a flavour conversation the brand needed to be a part of. A conversation that it would not enter quietly. To have some fun with consumers, KD trolled Starbucks and their #PSL culture and launched this flavour boost in a way that would get people talking.

EXECUTION
Given the troll-y nature of the campaign, the agency created a Starbucks-inspired version of the KD logo and featured the product in a classic white to-go cup in the creative for social, OOH, our website and the kits that were delivered to consumers who won a sample of the product. They mirrored classic Starbucks and #Basic culture tropes when developing the launch assets and mimicked their fall-inspired tabletop product shots featuring mini gourds. The agency even carefully styled the model in the fall essentials of any wardrobe - chunky knit scarves and cozy flannels.

KD developed a limited run of the Pumpkin Spice Flavour Boost over the course of just a few weeks to get the product into consumers hands as soon as possible. It knew demand for the product would far exceed the 1,000 samples that were available, and the brand also wanted to get its message out in September while it was most relevant with the target, so it kicked off the campaign on the first official day of fall, September 22.

Rethink launched with a social post that announced the product and asked Canadians to sign up via a website to be notified when the product dropped in October. The response was swift - some people loved it, some people were horrified - but everyone was talking about KD, not Cheetos.

The brand bought OOH in hyper-targeted intersections outside of busy Starbucks locations in downtown Toronto and used headlines like “This is a grande idea” to poke fun at the coffee chain. To drive engagement online, it tweeted at other brands and celebrities that are typically associated with Pumpkin Spice season, culinary personalities and Canadian celebrities and asked them if they would be interested in a sample of our product. The brand tweeted back at fans with personalized assets featuring their name or social handle incorrectly spelled on the PSKD cup, just like you would get at Starbucks.

From there, the campaign spread like wildfire across Canadian and American social media and dominated the news cycles, catching the attention of Al Roker, Gordon Ramsay, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and millions more.

Credits

CCO: Aaron Starkman
ECD: Mike Dubrick
CSO: Sean McDonald
Head of Art: Joel Holtby
Creative Director: Allan Topol, Loretta Lau
Art Director: Nick Noh
Writer: Jordan Darnbrough
Designer: Jake Lim, Erin Maguire
French Writer: Karine Doucet
Strategist: Sean McDonald, Hannah Newport
Producer (in house): Narine Artinian, Kate Spencer
Production Company: Fuze Reps
Photographer: Chris Robinson
Producer: Helen Yousif
Group Account Director: Amy Greenspoon
Account Director: Kai de Bruyn Kops
Account Manager: Allie Kennedy
Media: Starcom
PR: The Colony Project
Community Management: SALT