2023 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Purdys Chocolatier has been making quality chocolate in Canada since 1907 and since then has been cherished and renowned for the experiences it enables. For many Canadians, Purdys has played a major role in their holiday memories through everything from advent calendars to assorted boxes.

But although Purdys had grown in sales over the last five years, its transaction counts had declined - millennials and new Canadians who didn’t grow up with Purdys were less connected with the brand.

Rethink's brief was to help make Purdys top of mind for the holidays and make an emotional connection with all Canadians without relying on past traditions. The agency wanted to respond to a cultural insight that was relevant today and help express Purdys’ belief in the power of chocolate to create experiences
of joy and connection.

Passing a box of chocolates around with friends and family is a festive tradition. Grabbing the legend and picking out your favourites is a universal feeling of joy that many of us can relate to. Except, not everyone can experience it. For the 23 million North Americans who are blind or partially sighted, finding their favourites among a box of options is completely inaccessible.

So, Rethink came up with a solution: a chocolate box specifically designed for the blind and partially sighted community, so that an often overlooked group finally got to independently experience the joy of picking their favourite chocolate —
a joy the rest of us take for granted.

Launched from December 2-24, 2021, the Holiday Braille Box was a
first-of-its-kind, fully accessible box of chocolates made in consultation
with the blind and partially sighted community. The box included braille orientation tabs, a braille chocolate legend and a QR code that brought users to a fully accessible audio version of the legend.

Then, to bring the accessibility of finding one's favourite chocolate to even more people, the full Purdys chocolate legend was also made available in the 10 most spoken languages in Canada (English, French, Spanish, Italian, German,
Mandarin, Cantonese, Punjabi, Tagalog and Arabic).

They launched the box with a product video where four members of the blind and partially sighted community reacted to the box and shared their experiences and feelings of being excluded from something that able-bodied people take for granted.

The Holiday Braille Box was sold in stores nationwide and around the world online.
An initial run sold out in a matter of hours and two additional runs soon also sold out.
As a result of this demand, the box has been made available year-round and is now simply known as The Braille Box.

The campaign had an earned media value of 395 times the initial investment with national and international outlets picking up the story. The international media outlet, Yahoo, applauded Purdys for “thinking outside the box” and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind said that Purdys is “helping change what it means to be blind,” directly supporting the organization’s mission.

Credits

Chief Creative Officer: Aaron Starkman
Chief Strategy Officer: Sean McDonald
Executive Creative Director: Leia Rogers, Morgan Tierney
CD: Sean O’Connor, Sheldon Rennie
ACD: Jordon Lawson
Art Director: Jake Gauthier
Writer: Evan Kane
Designer: Jake Gauthier, Abrie Miller
Print Producer: April Haffenden, Claire Khan
Lead Strategist: Darren Yada
Strategist: Anna Shkuratoff
Amplification Strategists: Sara Lemmermeyer, Meredith Montgomery, Aliz Tennant
Photographer: Clinton Hussey
Studio Artist / Typographer: Darina Kosikova, Linda Dumont
Broadcast Producer (in house): Zara Thomas, Yogi Omar
Production Company: R+D Productions
Director of photography: Thomas Buchan
Line Producer: Richard Amies
Post Production House: R+D Post
Editor: Alijah Monckton
Audio House: Wave Productions
Producer (Audio House): Craig Zarazun
Engineer: Craig Zarazun
Account Services: Katherine McKeen
Client Supervisor: Julia Cho