Canada Bread Goes for Chuckles in New Digital Campaign

January 9, 2013

Author: Rebecca Harris
Publication: Marketing Mag

Canada Bread’s new digital campaign for Dempster’s aims to beat bread’s bad rap.

In a hidden-camera video series, comedian Gerry Dee pranks unsuspecting folks and humorously educates them on the nutritional benefits of whole grain bread.

“There’s been a lot of mention around the demonizing of bread and our approach was to provide some information around the nutrients of bread and how it’s part of a healthy diet,” said Jerry Sen, director of digital and social marketing at Maple Leaf Foods, which owns Canada Bread.

In the first spot, Dee poses as a juice-bar server and asks customers if they want their juice blended with vitamins and fibre. He proceeds to stuff pieces of bread into their smoothie orders, much to the shock (and at turns, amusement and anger) of patrons. (One calls him bad name and walks out, while another agrees the bread-fortified beverage was tasty.)

In a second video, launching in March, Dee acts as a camp counselor at a day camp, where he shocks youngsters while swapping their grilled cheese sandwiches for eggplant baloney.

“Bread is a low-engagement category,” said Cory Eisentraut, group creative director at Cundari, which created the campaign. “We needed to use humour, entertainment and engagement to get people thinking about something that is maybe not something they would normally be thinking about.”

The campaign marks the first project awarded to Cundari after participating in a digital agency search with Canada Bread last fall. Cundari created a “social hub” at NaturallyDempsters.ca, which houses the video ads in addition to a quiz, recipes and articles about bread. The videos are also on Dempster’s YouTube channel.

Online ads drive viewers to the microsite, which will also be promoted through Dempster’s Twitter feed and Facebook page.