To challenge the health trend
Delicato is the biggest Nordic manufacturer of cakes and pastries. The company is more than 50 years old. When the present CEO, Peter Larsson, started his job in 2004, Delicato had a label of being a little old fashioned, and the whole market was decreasing. One reason was probably the new health focused lifestyle here and everywhere.
After a solid investigation of the Delicato brand and the trends related to it, we launched a strategy to be proud of the delicious cakes and pastries with all the genuine ingredients. When others claimed wholemeal and fibre, Delicato guaranteed ”free from wholemeal”. Delicato was to go against existing health trends and in a positive way show the human behaviour of enjoying something sweet now and then.
The campaign was designed with sinfully attractive photos of the most popular Delicato pastries. The headlines made fun of physical training and diet advice from health magazines – in a humble and humoristic tone.
To win back popularity
Immediately after the first campaign, Delicato experienced a radical change in consciousness from consumers. The underground campaign in spring 2007 reached an observation grade of 89%, and the value of ”likeability” arose far over reference level.
Delicato received hundreds of spontaneous requests for print ads and posters. Many dieticians contacted Delicato and expressed their appreciation of the funny and disarming campaign.
The Delicato sales force met a completely changed attitude in customer meetings, and the food industry changed their mind about Delicato – in a positive direction. According to CEO Peter Larsson the internal pride among the Delicato staff also increased considerably.
At Ogilvy, we were happy to receive a Golden Egg Award for print in 2007 and a top rating in ”The most successful advertising” 48 weeks running in Dagens Media (Media of Today). In the advertising competition 100-wattaren Delicato was awarded a second place.
In addition to the positive feedback, you could see an increase of sales. For some products the increase was 300%, which helped the whole range of products, within the food store segment with 5%. These results are also interesting in relation to all other cakes and pastries on the market, which have a decreasing trend.