2021 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

CHALLENGE
For Kellogg Canada, bringing Cheez-It crackers from the U.S. to the Canadian market would be its most exciting innovation to launch in the past 20 years.

Dating back to 1921, Cheez-It is America’s favourite cracker brand with over a billion dollars of sales, but only a small portion of Canadians were aware of it and even fewer had tried it. In the United States, people were well accustomed to the bold, cheesy taste, exciting flavours, and innovative formats from Cheez-It. In Canada, crackers (led by Ritz and Goldfish) were stale compared to the rest of salty snacks — growing only 2% versus 5%.

INSIGHT
Crackers are boring while salty snacks (chips and flavoured popcorns) are youthful, funny and laser-focused on taste enjoyment (flavour and texture).

Cracker brands were becoming health focused, with claims like “made with veggies and fruits” and “one-third less fat than chips” that were taking all the fun out of snacking. So, instead of taking over the category as a better cracker, the idea was to think like a chip by focusing on the unique taste and texture of Cheez-It.

EXECUTION
Cheez-It goes to absurd lengths to perfect its cheesy, crunchy satisfaction.

Leo Burnett created “The Cheez-It Institute of Perfection,” led by a single TV asset that performed equally well as OLV, :30s/:15s, FR/EN, and with all kinds of salty snack lovers, no matter their age, gender or family status.

For social media, with little budget remaining, the agency searched for a select few “Cheez-It Real Cheez Influencers” who, for a chance to win a year’s supply of Cheez-It, submitted UGC that we turned into highly engaging, social-ready creative that was pushed out at scale.

RESULTS
The strategy to outperform crackers by becoming a better salty snack paid off in spades. Cheez It overtook 97% of established competition in four months and a significant portion of category growth. Also, in line with our strategy, the majority of Cheez-It volume was sourced from salty snacks over crackers.

The campaign generated a full year sales ROI of 5.25 to 1 and performed very well against the original objectives. Cheez-It reached the original $16MM sales forecast by end of Q3 and is on pace for a significantly higher number in Q4. Household penetration was also on an upward trend – reaching 12pts by the end of Q3, with all signs pointing to it continuing that momentum in Q4.

Creative performance for TV, OLV, and social performed at or above norm with particular strengths in involvement and branding (TV), recall and action intent (Social), and was a YouTube “Best In Class” by achieving top 25% awareness and purchase consideration amongst all Canadian ads.

Credits

Agency Info:
Leo Burnett President: Ben Tarr
Leo Burnett Chief Creative Director: Lisa Greenberg
Leo Burnett SVP Director Production Services: Franca Piacente
Leo Burnett VP Group Account Director: Mandy Eaton
Leo Burnett Group Creative Director: Morgan Kurchak
Leo Burnett Account Director: Mike Spilchuk
Leo Burnett Producer: Shannon Farrell
Leo Burnett Account Supervisor: Sheana Bow
Leo Burnett Art Director: Katya Garipova
Leo Burnett Copywriter: Jaime Sugiyama

Martel Copywriter: Eric Hebert
Martel Producer: Josée Lalonde

Production
Someplace Nice Executive Producer: Estelle Weir
Someplace Nice Line Producer: Katy Maravaia
Someplace Nice Director: Pierre Dalpe
Someplace Nice DOP: Barry Parrell
Someplace Nice Production Designer: Andrew Morton

Jigsaw Casting Director: Shasta Lutz

Colour Corrects Producer: Prisma Graphics

Editorial
School Editing Executive Producer: Yumi Suyama
School Editing Editor: Jon Devries
School Editing Assistant Editor: Rita Ushakova

Transfer/Online/VFX
The Vanity Executive Producer: Stephanie Pennington
The Vanity Colourist: Andrew Exworth
The Vanity Flame Artist: Sean Cochrane

Audio
The Eggplant Executive Producer: Nicola Treadgold
The Eggplant Director: Roc Gagliese
The Eggplant Engineer: Dan Horton

Media Agency
Starcom