In this film Knorr asks the question ‘What’s the greatest flavour on earth?’ and celebrates it in the Arctic of all places.

The film follows the life of Carmen, a young woman from the UK who’s followed her passion of working with dogs and looks after huskies in a remote village in Finland. She leads a hard life, often working 16 hours a day in temperatures as low as -40 degrees.

She tells us how she misses her family, especially on a Sunday when she knows they’ll all be back at home together to enjoy a traditional English roast dinner.

So Knorr arranges a roast for Carmen to enjoy.

When the meal is served to Carmen by a colleague she instantly asks “Have you been talking to my mum!?”

What Carmen doesn’t know is that her mother has been secretly flown out to make her favourite roast dinner with all the trimmings.

In an emotional climax, Carmen’s mother walks into the room and as the two of them embrace, the universal truth that the greatest flavour on earth is the taste of home shines through.

Knorr’s brand purpose is to bring flavour to people’s lives, and brought this to life by capturing an authentic story that emotionally resonated with consumers across the globe. Casting was critical for this documentary-style film.

We needed candidates who’d gone to great lengths pursuing their dreams and were in a situation that heightened feelings about flavour in their lives. They also needed to be willing and able to express their genuine feelings.

To fulfill the brief, we contacted 966 candidates from over 60 countries across the globe. They ranged from a Spanish biochemist living in the Amazon jungle to a Filipino Able-Seaman working on a Freightliner across the seas of Asia.

After a series of submissions, bios, self-taped interviews, video chats, a website was created to enable the agency and director to whittle them down to the ideal choice - Carmen.

Coupled with a strong connection to her mother, Carmen was able to talk about her passion, the sacrifices involved, and her ties to home. Critically, flavour remained a powerful part of her life with its emotional memories of home. The extreme hardships of the Artic setting served to highlight just how far she was from it.

The campaign is still on-going but global reach targets have already been exceeded, with >78million views in less than a month. It’s already delivering on driving brand love, and positive appreciation of the power that flavour can have in your life.

After outperforming in all of Unruly’s ShareRank benchmarks for the US & UK market and FMCG, (sharebility; brand recall; psychological response; social motivation; purchase intent), it’s been eliciting strong (positive) emotional engagement across the launch countries and beyond.

In just the first 8 days since launch, it achieved >50 million 30 second views, topping viral charts with >93,000 public interactions online, and resulting in a 474% uplift in brand affection (aka a public mentions of the film/brand that expresses positive sentiment AND strong emotion).

And no issues with the non-stereotypical representation of women have surfaced. Men and women alike have connected with Carmen’s story (e.g. Mattie Obie’s post “Great story that makes you feel closer to your family when they are away…”).

Carmen’s story is already one of the most viewed food ads on YouTube ever, and has reminded us all that flavour and food have an emotional power, no matter who or where you are in life.