Eighteen videos that got a German cheese into 1,271 Publix stores
Ammerländer is Europe's oldest dairy conglomerate, founded in 1885. Entering North America, it faced a problem no amount of European brand equity solves: American buyers, deli staff, and chefs had never heard of it and had no reference for what the product was for. We built the content that answered that, and the campaign was cited as a key factor in securing Publix.
European market insight does not translate
In Germany the brand needs no introduction. In North America it is one unfamiliar name in a case full of them, and the people who decide whether it gets shelf space are four different audiences with four different questions.
A category purchaser wants to know where it sits against what they already carry. Deli staff need to know how to cut it, store it, and describe it to a customer. A chef wants to know how it behaves under heat. A consumer just wants to know what to do with it tonight. Print collateral answers none of those well.
We started with competitive analysis and market positioning across both English and Spanish-speaking markets, then interviewed the people who already knew the answers — corporate chefs and sales managers — and turned what they said into scripts.
Eighteen bilingual shorts in three days, shot inside a distributor's kitchen
Every video was produced in English and Spanish with professional voice-overs rather than subtitles, so neither market gets the translated version.
We converted the corporate kitchens at Sysco Foods' Miami headquarters into a production studio. Shooting inside a distributor's own facility meant real equipment, real conditions, and a schedule tight enough that thirty-six finished cuts came out of a three-day shoot.
How each cheese melts, slices, and plates — the questions a chef asks before putting anything on a menu.
Fat content, format, and handling, in the terms a purchaser and a deli manager use rather than marketing language.
Product brand guidelines and a unified visual system, so the videos, packaging, and trade material match across every market.
Watch the work
Two shorts from the series below: a cooking application spot and a product feature.
Into a top-ten supermarket chain
The campaign proved instrumental in securing placement in Publix Supermarkets, one of the ten largest chains in the country, across 1,271 retail locations. The content's ability to communicate product value and applications to several audiences at once — from purchasers to deli staff — was cited as a key factor in the expansion.
The reason is structural rather than creative. A retail buying decision passes through a chain of people who each need a different question answered, and a short that answers one question well can be sent to exactly the person asking it. Eighteen of those, in two languages, is a sales tool rather than a campaign.
Bringing a European brand into North America?
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