Situation: Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day for “dips” in America. Guacamole is at every Super Bowl party. Hummus is a fan favorite. Even spinach artichoke dip is eaten in record numbers. Jif Peanut Butter, however, has never been popular on Americans’ favorite day for snacking, because people don’t consider it a dip. Our target audience uses it almost exclusively for peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, which are declining in popularity.

Brief: Make Americans think of Jif as a dip.

Objective: Hack the snack table to put Jif in the hands (and hearts) of Americans on Super Bowl Sunday.

Once we realized that America’s obsession with chicken wings leads to millions of celery stalks being heartlessly discarded, it got us thinking, “What if Jif Peanut Butter could keep celery from going to waste?”

And with that, the public service announcement (PSA) to “Save the Celery” was born. Our 360° campaign highlighted the not-so-serious issue of celery neglect in a very serious, tongue-in-cheek way. But it wasn’t enough to present our audience with the problem, we needed to inspire action.

That’s why each campaign touchpoint drove to SaveTheCelery.com where people could order a free jar of Jif Peanut Butter to their door. The delivery service Gopuff then provided delivery within the hour. That’s how we – and America – saved the celery on Super Bowl Sunday.

Target Audience: To satisfy Jif's objective to get people using their peanut butter more often, we found the most effective target audience was young, frequent snackers. This group loves peanut butter but only consumes Jif for peanut butter sandwiches and never as a snack.

Approach: The biggest day of the year for snacking is the Super Bowl. The only problem is that our target audience eats all types of dips but never thinks to eat Jif in this way. So we leveraged channels they would be on and invited them to Save the Celery with the celery already at every Super Bowl party – inserting ourselves into the cultural phenomenon that is Super Bowl Sunday.

CTA: Since this audience is more likely to purchase groceries online and expects immediacy, all efforts directed to SaveTheCelery.com where people could order free Jif directly to their door.

Our campaign began two weeks before the Super Bowl with the film “Celery Sorrows.” Highlighting the atrocities being faced by celery, we humanized this vegetable, showing it being heartlessly discarded to the point in which people wanted to save it. We then gave them a chance to do just that at SaveTheCelery.com.

The website was our commerce solution to celery neglect that every execution drove to.

Leading up to the game, people could prepare to Save the Celery at their Super Bowl parties by bundling Jif, celery, and wings. But the true solution came on Super Bowl Sunday when the Jif on our site became free. That’s right, free Jif to Save the Celery. The delivery service Gopuff then provided real-time delivery to homes in 538 cities across the country. And that is how we put Jif in the hands (and hearts) of Americans on Super Bowl Sunday.

Jif didn’t only show up at the Super Bowl, we became a part of the cultural conversation. Save the Celery received coverage in 161 media outlets, helping us garner over 1 billion impressions in the two weeks the campaign ran. This exceeded expectations by an astounding 300%.

SaveTheCelery.com reaped the benefits of our campaign success, receiving over 50,000 visitors on Super Bowl Sunday alone. More importantly, every free jar of Jif was claimed and delivered to people in 538 different cities before the game even started.

In the end, we changed the behavior of Super Bowl viewers. Jif became a dip that Americans used to Save the Celery and we became a brand that will forever have its place on the snack table. Not bad for a Super Bowl campaign without a Super Bowl budget.