My team had worked for 9 months on a new brand campaign for Dixie disposable plates when, in March 2020, the pandemic brought everything to a screeching halt.
Even if we could've found a way to produce the campaign, to us it just didn't feel right to tout Dixie’s superiority over the competition at a time when many households couldn’t get their hands on ANY disposable paper products, let alone ours.
Our client partners were in a strange position. Sales were climbing as families cleared shelves in anticipation of lockdowns, and they were sitting on funding for a campaign that wasn't going to be produced any time soon.
So, they asked, what the hell do we do now??
Our POV on this was pretty straightforward:
Either do something genuinely helpful,
or do nothing at all.
But what does help look like?
In the first few weeks as quarantine orders made their way across the US, many brands took up a unifying rally cry: “We’re all in this together!”
But as people continued to connect and vent across social platforms, we realized that – yes, everyone is collectively reeling, but the actual impact of quarantine life is truly unique from one household to the next.
So, instead of attempting a one-size-fits-all solution,
we launched with a question.
Campaign Recap
Launching in the early chaos of the pandemic, we didn’t know what to expect.
But the responses flowed in, earning the highest engagement in the 100+ year history of the Dixie brand.
Just a fraction of the 30,000+ submissions we received.
Throughout the 8 weeks of the campaign, our entire team rolled up our collective sleeves, sorting and ranking the thousands of submissions that came in before collaborating intensively with clients to determine the 500 winners that would be awarded each week.
The intense logistics proved to be worth it as we were able to serve up some much-needed positivity in the form of trampolines, swimming pools, lawn service, ice cream subscriptions, crossword puzzles, appliance repairs, a bee keeping kit, workout gear, work-from-home supplies, air conditioners, internet service, remote teaching tools, cooking lessons and much more to folks when they needed it most.
