KitchenAid believes in celebrating creativity in the kitchen. The KitchenAid stand mixer is an icon of industrial design, coveted by cooks all over the world. With dozens of combinations of colours, bowls and attachments, the stand mixer offers endless possibilities for creative expression.

Stand mixers are a high-research purchase. The KitchenAid stand mixer is a category leader, and the customization possibilities make it something creative cooks enjoy playing with. However, we face stiff competition from competitors like Cuisinart, who have invested heavily in price promotions and increased their media spend.

As a result, driving traffic to the website is a key goal. That is the destination where people can understand what differentiates KitchenAid stand mixers as the category leader, such as our 33 different colour options. For this campaign, our goal was to produce an increase in visits to the website.

KitchenAid’s core maker target is more likely to work in the urban core of cities like Toronto. To reach this younger, affluent audience we bought digital billboard space in front of the CN Tower on one of the city’s busiest commutes. The hand-picked location was prominent to drivers coming into Toronto’s downtown core.

It displayed an image of the mixer that would change colour as quickly as every two seconds to match the changing light projected by the Tower and adjacent sports dome behind it.

To ensure synchronization, we set up a webcam that was pointed 24/7 at the CN Tower. During that time, the camera detected its colour every two seconds. Purpose-built code converted the information into an XML feed. An algorithm used that code to provide real-time trafficking instructions to our media partner that matched the colour of the Tower with the closest match among KitchenAid’s 33 stand mixer colours on a large dynamic billboard along the Gardiner expressway.

Stretching the existing digital capabilities of out-of-home billboards brought the idea to life. XML feed is the method used to change creative on digital boards, but typically that is used simply to change creative messaging from one advertiser to another in a digital loop. For KitchenAid, code was written to continuously customize the single KitchenAid feed.

This simple but innovative use of out-of-home technology created a dynamic billboard that simultaneously mimicked the ever-changing colours of the CN Tower’s nighttime lights and spark the imaginations of Toronto’s culinary crowd. The campaign achieved the following:

350,000 impressions in earned media coverage across multiple publications.

78% increase in traffic to stand mixers on the KitchenAid website over the prior month, exceeding our goal considerably.

Accolades from Industry press, such as Adweek - ‘Striking’ and Ad Age - ‘Iconic’

Recognitions as an outstanding solution with 19 Canadian/International awards to date, including Ad Age’s Gold Media Campaign of the Year (Small Agency)