Hellmann’s and mayonnaise are synonymous with sandwiches. However, there is one popular sandwich where mayonnaise is not the condiment of choice – the grilled cheese. In the US, 2.3 billion grilled cheeses are made each year (enough to fill up 900 Olympic swimming pools).

The majority (70%) of those sandwiches are made using butter, instead of mayonnaise. Yet, it is a culinary secret that mayonnaise is the superior spread to use when it comes to making grilled cheese. Converting butter users to Hellmann’s mayo represented a massive business opportunity. If we could get just 10% of the grilled cheeses to be made with mayo, it would result in an incremental $150 million in sales. It was time to let the secret out of the bread bag.

Butter vs Mayo. We had to prove mayo is better on the outside of toast for grilled cheese. So we went to the most obvious place – Toast, North Carolina. For 24 hours, we literally banned mayo inside Toast. To prove it tastes better on the outside of toast.

Telling people was not enough, we had to have people experience it for themselves. We had the people of Toast go outside of Toast to taste how much better mayo on the outside makes a tastier grilled cheese.

Our audience: grilled cheese lovers. The average American eats 36 grilled cheese sandwiches a year. But it is not just their love of the sandwich that caught our attention. They are in an endless pursuit to perfect making this beloved sandwich. There is no shortage of debate on what cheese to use, the best bread and we saw some boldly claim that a superior grilled cheese comes when you spread mayo, not butter, on the outside of your grilled cheese.

Most have never even thought of using mayo because mayo is only used on the inside of a sandwich. Our opportunity - we would convince them that mayonnaise (not butter) spread on the outside of your bread makes the tastiest, crispiest grilled cheese sandwich ever.

Our mayo ban began with a takeover of unbranded assets inside Toast, NC announcing the ban on behalf of the fictional Commission for Condiment Use, effective March 14th. (The assets ran for 4 days prior)

-Twelve billboards within Toast. (Toast is very small, you could see one from basically anywhere in the town)

-Hundreds of flyers

-Multiple ads in the local newspaper

-Help of the local DJ

With NASCAR legend and North Carolina native, Dale Earnhardt Jr., the Commission, much to the surprise of the entire town, went door-to-door, business-to-business in search of mayo. If we found mayo, we made them hand it over. Then we handed them the why. We invited every Toastian to the Food Lion (grocery store) just outside the Toast border to try grilled cheese sandwiches with Mayo on the outside of toast. Outside of toast. With every bite we had a convert and were forgiven.

Since launching this April, our small town idea has already generated big results with 1.4 billion impressions and 73 placements across social, broadcast, online and print.