During the last couple of years the interest for sourdough has exploded in Norway, and it seems to be a sourdough starter in every home. Social media is flooded with photos of tiny jars with sourdough starters.

Smak is a bread brand sold at one of Norway’s biggest grocery chains: Coop. When they started to use sourdough in their recipe, we had to get the word out and get people to try the new and improved bread.

So we did just like everybody else. Only bigger. We made a giant jar with sourdough starter and put it on display in one of Norway’s biggest shopping streets.

Our primary target audience was the quality-seeking people based in central Oslo and secondary the ones who saw the giant sourdough online through social media and the livestream.

Our strategy was to do exactly as our target audience, but in a scale so big it had to get noticed.

In February of 2021 the giant sourdough was brought to life and placed in a shopping window in Bogstadveien, one of Norway’s biggest shopping streets. It was on a display for a month.

To keep the giant sourdough alive, the starter was fed everyday. It was fed by celebrity chefs and sourdough experts. We also recruited feeders through social media.

The sourdough was also livestreamed 24/7 on YouTube.

People could order a “baby starter” from the giant one to bake their own sourdough bread. Or, they could skip the baking and just order a freshly baked sourdough Smak-bread.

The average watch time of the livestream was 7 minutes and 23 seconds.

The giant jar with a sourdough starter seemed to make people hungry. The sale of Smak-bread increased with 32 percent during the campaign period.