2023 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Simulate is a plant-based food company. Since launching its marquee chicken nugget product in 2019, it has been one of the fastest growing frozen food brands in America.

Through a combination of provocative packaging design (the box has the picture of a chicken eating a chicken nugget), savvy PR, influencer endorsements and a famously irreverent social presence, it built a “cult like” DTC customer.

In 2021, McCain Foods secured the distribution rights for the product in Canada. The only problem was that the brand’s internet fame had not crossed the border. The brief was simple, but daunting: recreate Simulate’s cultural presence in Canada to carve out the same path to growth the brand had achieved in the United States.

Rethink honed in on a cultural insight that would help unlock the type of work needed to set the internet on fire. It was inspired by the brand’s name, Simulate, and an increasingly central theme in 21st century living: questioning reality.

Is that actually Justin Trudeau, or just a deep-fake video of him? Is a company actually doing well, or is it just a meme stock? Is that a bag of Doritos, or just a cake?
Are we living in a simulation? Or are we living in reality?

Plant-Based Chicken Nuggets are just one of the many reasons you should be questioning your reality. Rethink knew that if they could get the internet debating the reality of chicken, they'd be halfway to proving their point, and might
even achieve internet fame while they were at it.

The agency's way to get the internet debating the reality of chicken was to build a fake, animatronic chicken, and set it loose on the internet.

First, they uploaded an unbranded, fake, flying chicken video to Reddit, completely without context—knowing it would spark debate, and likely rise to the top as a result. And rise it did, to not one, but dozens of subreddits.

Conspiracy theories ran wild, and Redditors speculated the mysterious birds were everything from CGI to government drones. All the back and forth drew a crowd, and the ensuing upvotes helped the videos gain more and more traction online.

Soon the agency expanded thei hoax to TikTok, Instagram and Youtube, where the videos and debates took flight as well, until finally, they transcended social entirely and landed in news articles and publications. Everyone had the same question.
What the cluck was going on with these birds?

And, just as the whole Internet was losing their minds, the truth was finally revealed:
It was all fake. Just like the chicken in Simulate NUGGS.

The campaign earned over 2.5 million impressions in earned media, over seven million impressions in organic social reach, and an overwhelmingly positive social media response with over 22,000 comments across posts. The most viral TikToks had more than 5.5 million views and nearly 70 duets and stitches, earning over 18.6 million impressions to nearly 2.5M Canadians in paid media.

Credits

Chief Creative Officer: Aaron Starkman
Executive Creative Director: Leia Rogers
ACDs: Grace Cho, Cam Spires
Creative Director: Karine Doucet
Writer: Cam Spires
Art Director: Grace Cho
CSO: Sean McDonald
Planning Director: Darren Yada
Strategist: Sam Massooleh
Broadcast Producer: Eliza Nowack, David Fraser-Winsby
Production Company: Anthill Films
Partner / Executive Producer: Ian Dunn
Partner / Director of Aerials: Colin Jones
Cinematographer: William Biname
Director: Cam Spires and Grace Cho
Line Producer: Mack Stannard
Post Production House: PostPro Media
Editor: Julia Hostetler
2D / 3D Visual Artist: Mathew Hayashi, Cory Clarkson, Austin Wendenburg
Grading: Julia Hostetler
Audio House: Wave Productions
Engineer: Dave Gaudet
Group Account Director: Sarah Riedlinger
Account Manager: Melissa Luk
Strategic Communications Lead: Meredith Montgomery
PR Account Director: Sara Lemmermeyer
PR Coordinator: Kaitlyn Vian

Clients:
Matt Kohler, Managing Director, Canada Retail
Mike Embir, Director of Marketing Retail
Kathryn Miskell, Sr Integrated Marketing Manager
Lily Devins, Brand Manager, SnApps
Nadia Eghbali, Associate Brand Manager
Matt Higgs, Community Manager/Always On Lead