KBS Canada has been selected by McCain Foods Canada as lead creative agency on a new brand campaign for McCain Superfries, which launched today.
As part of its new assignment, which came after a competitive pitch process, KBS has created a new brand campaign “to elevate the frozen fry experience at home [and] to redefine the French fry category,” according to a press release. Paul Gallagher, director of marketing at McCain Foods Canada, says the assignment is specific to this brand campaign, a new approach for the company’s agency relationships, though he says McCain may look to KBS for future projects as the relationship continues to grow.
Today also marks the launch of the campaign, dubbed “Let Cravings Be Your Guide.” The platform is focusing on positioning Superfries as a go-to food in intimate situations with friends and families, outside of meals, in a pair of videos focusing on a girls’ night and couple’s night in.
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The two spots created thus far will run on TV nationally. The campaign will also include digital, social, OOH and in-store elements.
McCain recently worked with Grip on Superfries with the “#Modifry” campaign, and with Taxi prior to that on “It’s All Good.” Grip is continuing to handle digital and social elements for Superfries, with UM on media and DACS handling in-store for the “Let Cravings Be Your Guide” campaign.
Gallagher says McCain needed a new platform for the Superfries brand because it had recently shifted its consumer target from families to adult-only households.
“Superfries has been around forever and has a lot of good consumer awareness, but historically our advertising has been towards families,” he says. “We realized 70% of households in Canada don’t have any kids in them, which is a huge audience, and those adult-only households were not buying frozen french fries as much as the families were.”
Gallagher says that meant changing perceptions of frozen french fries as a food served alongside other “convenience” meal options that don’t have much thought or creativity put into them. That new path began with the “#Modifry” campaign, which tried to bring the same excitement and experimentation fries enjoy at restaurants (through things like different toppings and poutine varieties) into the home by tapping into foodie culture. To communicate that same excitement, the spots developed by KBS focus on doing those kind of experiments in spontaneous situations and sharing it.
“People are looking to put new twists on their food, but that doesn’t mean they have to build something from scratch,” says Matt Hassell, CCO at KBS Canada. “Superfries can be a starting point from which you can be creative and add the fun things you want to add. We were looking at ‘Pinterest fail’ websites, and we thought if this is the kind of thing our target is living, Superfries can be a canvas you build on to help avoid that.”
Hassell says the campaign also looked to create new occasions where Superfries could be enjoyed and bring the same level of emotion to them as a regular meal with a loved one or friends. Gallagher adds creating new occasions was also a way to further shake up expectations of Superfries and differentiate itself.
“The meal you have with a spouse or boyfirend or girlfriend is an important time to connect, but it’s also the most common,” he says. “We already wanted to shift the perceptions of fries, so on top of bringing more excitement to where and when you serve them on top of how you serve them, and show you can serve them in moments you create spontaneously through more aspirational occasions.”
