2024 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Philadelphia had always dominated the cream cheese market. But in recent years, younger consumers were switching to storebrand cream cheese because Philadelphia didn’t feel relevant to their lives anymore, making it easily replaceable. Research showed that consumers didn’t identify with the most recent creative and as a result, sales volume declined by 7.3% and market share declined by 1.5%.

Their brief was to reignite love for Philadelphia among younger Canadians and their objectives were to increase sales, recovering sales volume and market share over store brand cream cheese.

Capturing Millennials and Gen Z’s attention is challenging — their attention is fragmented and every brand is trying to reach them. They often have niche interests and they knew that in order to stand out, they needed to do something deeply culturally relevant that would instantly catch their attention and keep them engaged.

Millennials and Gen Z are obsessed with sneakers, specifically Nike, leading share preference at 51% with Gen Z and 41% with Millennials. When Nike announced their Montreal Bagel Dunks, they saw an opportunity to participate in a conversation their audience was already having and respond in real time. Rather than develop a post featuring the Bagel Dunks, they moved lightning fast to create their own accessory for the shoe, hijacking the conversation in a clear, authentic and undeniable way to resonate with Millennials and Gen Z.

Describe the execution, identifying any elements of the program that
challenged the status quo:
In order to capitalize on this moment they had to move fast, going from concept to announcement in 48 hours. Borrowing heavily from the hype-to-drop cycle common in the sneaker world, they launched Philly Schmear Socks in three phases.

Phase 1 was sesame seeding. Leading up to their announcement they seeded the idea by commenting a bagel or eye emojis on key account’s posts about the Bagel Dunks driving intrigue and interest. In the background they were busy designing Schmear Socks in three “flavours” — Original, Chive & Onion and Strawberry.

Phase 2 was telling the world. On the day Nike’s Bagel Dunks dropped, they took to their social channels and announced the perfect accessory - Philly Schmear Socks. They created a simple “dropping soon” microsite, buying us time to build out a full site for purchasing while mirroring the scarcity tactics of
the online streetwear community.

Phase 3 was dropping the socks. A few weeks after their announcement, they dropped Schmear Socks for purchase online via sponsored posts and shoppable annotations on Instagram, selling out in under two hours.

The results of the campaign included 67 pieces of earned coverage across North America. They earned more than 300M impressions in 24 hours, a total coverage value: $3.7M, 83% of Nike Bagel Dunk media stories mentioned Philadelphia Cream Cheese, publications that target Gen Z (Complex, Narcity, MTL Blog, Streets of Toronto) covered the Schmear Socks and the shoes and socks combo sold for
2.5x the shoes alone.

Most importantly, Philadelphia saw a 15.3% increase in sales of original Philadelphia cream cheese and increased market share by 2.1%, not just recovering the 7.3% decline in sales and 1.5% decline in market share, but making gains.

Credits

Chief Creative Officer: Aaron Starkman, Mike Dubrick
Chief Srategy Officer: Sean McDonald
Executive Creative Director: Xavier Blais
Strategist: Tanvi Swar, Sarah Phillips, Tevis Spence
Art Director: Michelle Budge
Writer: Jackson Byrne, Jeremie Lachance, Marie-Hélène Lessard
Print Producer: Kate Spencer, April Haffenden
Printers: Custom Labs powered by Outway
PR: Middle Child, Zeno Group
Media: Starcom, Carat
Account Services: Jamie Sutherland, Joanna Oszczak, Monica Ha, Catherine B. Mainville
Media: Carat, Starcom
Client: Kaitlin Kocsis, Keenan White, Anne Field

PR: Middle Child
Sean Citrigno, Managing Director
Gillian DiCesare, Vice President
Emily Kett, Account Director
Rebecca Fuller, Associate Account Director
Bea Ticsay, Senior Account Manager, Digital
Chandler Nowak, Senior Account Manager
Stéphania Masoabo, Account Manager
Patricia Gonzalez, Senior Account Executive
Charlotte Hefner, Senior Account Executive
Sabeeyha Bobat, Account Executive

PR: Zeno Group
Missy Maher, EVP, Head of Integrated Communications
Jamie Dammrich, Senior Vice President
Courtney Pischke, Senior Vice President, Media Strategy
Alysa Winkler, Vice President
Bethany Stokoski, Account Supervisor
Veronica Smith, Senior Account Executive, Media Relations
Morgan Miller, Senior Account Executive