2023 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

In Canada, Philadelphia Cream Cheese is an icon. Every Canadian knows the brand by its long-running tagline “A Little Taste of Heaven”. They’ve even given the Philadelphia Angel, the star of Philly’s campaigns, celebrity status. But in 2022, sales volume had decreased by 7.3% and market share dropped by 1.5%. With inflation, Philly’s Little Taste of Heaven wasn’t enough to drive sales and people were downgrading to store-brand cream cheese. Their challenge was to reignite a love for Philadelphia and lift sales.

Even though Gen Z had grown up with the Philly angel, the “Little Taste of Heaven” wasn’t culturally relevant and didn’t align with their interests.

To get a new generation to crave Philly, they turned the iconic “Little Taste of Heaven” into a “Little Taste of Hell” by creating a new, limited-edition cream cheese that was 208x hotter than jalapeno peppers, challenging their taste buds.

To signal their fall from heaven into hell, they completely redesigned the Philadelphia brand. The brand created a new devil-horned logo and traded its iconic silver packaging for a new demonic black look. Even Philadelphia’s heavenly white cream cheese was turned inferno orange from the fiery hot pepper extract. The cream cheese was included in a matte black kit, alongside a legally binding waiver printed on warning red paper and a custom pair of protective gloves for safe schmearing.

“A Little Taste of Hell” was launched with an OLV on a day as frightening and mysterious as their cream cheese, Friday the 13th. In the days leading up to the launch, they teased the new flavour with influencers who kickstarted user-generated content and drove people to purchase a kit that was sold exclusively on Uber Eats for $6.66, naturally.

All kits sold out on Uber Eats in under 3 hours. “A Little Taste of Hell” resulted in a 600% increase in social engagement. After struggling to reach a young demographic, people were sharing Philadelphia on TikTok and other social platforms, creating the kind of content the internet loves to watch and share most -
people suffering.

Philadelphia saw a 15.3% increase in sales of original Philadelphia cream cheese and increased market share by 2.1%, not just recovering losses, but making gains.

Credits

Chief Creative Officer: Aaron Starkman, Mike Dubrick
Chief Strategy Officer: Sean McDonald
Executive Creative Director: Xavier Blais
Creative Director / Head of Art: Joel Holtby
Creative Director / Designer: Jake Lim
Associate Creative Director / Art Director: Nick Noh
Associate Creative Director / Copywriter: Jordan Darnbrough
Strategist: Julian Morgan, Tanvi Swar, Stacy Ross
Producers: Terri Winter, Kate Spencer, Todd Harrison, Shelby Spigelman, Spencer Houghton, Narine Artinian
Editor: Stephen Parker
Photographer: Dave Todon
Digital Artist: Mike Halbwachs
PR: Middle Child
On-Line: The Vanity
Audio House: Vapor Music
Group Account Director: Jamie Sutherland, Amy Greenspoon
Account Director: Joanna Oszczak, Kai de Bruyn Kops, Malcolm D'Souza, Maiuran Sivakumar
Account Manager: Nina Erceg-Gogic
Account Supervisor: Monica Ha
Client Supervisor: Kaitlin Kocsis, Keenan White, Anee Field, Jacqueline Chao, Daniel Gotlib, Nina Patel