Kraft Peanut Butter has been an iconic Canadian brand for over 60 years. It’s the category in Canada. Lots of Canadians grew up eating KPB for breakfast at home or for lunch at school. Their communication utilized saccharine nostalgia to maintain relevance, allowing the brand to rest on its laurels when it came to how they expressed their purpose, to nourish connections. In recent years new category entrants put pressure on the #1 peanut butter to find a new way to stay relevant.

The brief: breathe life into Kraft Peanut Butter to create relevance with an audience that sees the brand as overly sentimental and old. Our objective was to engage existing and re-engage lapsed users by targeting an issue that was of significance to the brand and its users as a way to build on its purpose and ultimately reaffirm the trust Canadians’ have in the brand.

Our creative idea was rooted in owning an issue our product creates, underpinned by a belief that Canadians should have equal access to life-saving medication. No medication should cost more than the product it protects against.

To alleviate stress for Canadians around an issue that Kraft Peanut Butter is directly connected to, we launched Protection for Peanuts, a fund to offset the cost of life-saving epinephrine injection pens.

Our hope was to shed light on allergy medication coverage gaps, help offset costs, and ultimately spark a conversation that drives long-term change.

We took a 360-degree approach to media with contextually relevant targeting against allergy groups, parents, pharmacies, etc. to best reach impacted Canadians. We also partnered with NHL player Alexis Lafreniere who has a severe peanut allergy, to further spread awareness. To make a bigger impact, we encouraged other peanut-based brands to join us in our mission.

We looked at key barriers the brand faced. One seemingly impossible barrier rose to the top: food allergies. 1 in 3 Canadians are impacted by food allergies, putting 2.6MM+ Canadians at risk of a severe anaphylactic reaction. Most reactions are caused by peanut products, of which peanut butter sells the most. Making peanut butter the poster child of food allergy issues.

Treatment for anaphylactic reactions is epinephrine auto-injectors, which cost nearly 25 times more than the allergen it protects against, in this case a jar of Kraft Peanut Butter. The worst part, Canadians face out-of-pocket expenses for this life-saving medication.

Acknowledging our product causes life-threatening allergic reactions sounds insane, unless by acknowledging the problem, you become the solution. So, by taking the issue head on we were able to not only change perceptions of our brand, but we became the true consumer champion of eradicating peanut allergies.

We took a 360-degree approach to media with contextually relevant targeting against allergy groups, parents, pharmacies, etc. to best reach impacted Canadians. We also partnered with NHL player Alexis Lafreniere who has a severe peanut allergy, to further spread awareness and encourage Canadians to learn more at our protectionforpeanuts.ca site. To make a bigger impact, we encouraged other peanut-based brands to join us in our mission on social platforms.

On social (IG, FB, TW) our campaign was live from Nov 22-Dec 19, 2021. OOH including high impact digital boards in Toronto and Vancouver and wildpostings in Toronto, from Nov 22-Dec 19, 2021. Print insert in Globe and Mail (Canada's most widely distributed newpaper) was available w/o Nov 22, 2021.

Protection for Peanuts achieved 125.2MM earned impressions, far surpassing our target of 20MM by 626%. Our story was picked up 331 times, including coverage from top national news outlets like Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star.

Online we saw an engagement rate of 6% (overdelivering vs. benchmark) in Facebook and Instagram as Canadians shared the news. Sentiment was over 50% positive, with consumers expressing gratitude and support for the campaign. We received numerous heartwarming messages from Canadians impacted by food allergies and even received support from Food Allergy Canada, a leading non-profit organization dedicated to helping Canadians with food allergies.

Most importantly, we successfully offset the cost of essential epinephrine medication for Canadians in need, fulfilling $75,000 in reimbursements.