The Cardboard Cake was effectively an edible DM piece sent directly to 100+ Australian celebrity chefs and foodie influencers with the aim of driving social media commentary.

When it comes to food, for the most part, Australians are a pretty “no-nonsense” down to earth bunch. The meat pie is an iconic national favourite, as is the sausage roll and the vegimite sandwich. And one thing these downunder delicacies all traditionally have in common is gluten; so you can imagine the reaction you get from your average Aussie if you mention the words “gluten-free”. That’s right, it’s not positive! And there just aren’t enough good-tasting gluten-free food options available on mainstream Australian supermarket shelves to convince the general public that a gluten-free meat pie, sausage roll or vegimite sandwich can actually taste pretty good. As far as most Aussies are concerned, the very idea of gluten-free is verging on being un-Australian. Their mind is made up: “Gluten-free food? Tastes like cardboard mate!”.

For a long time there’s been a perception in Australia that “gluten-free food tastes like cardboard”, which is bad news when you’re one of a growing number of Australians diagnosed with Coeliac Disease. It’s also bad news when you’re Wholegreen Bakery - a company that specialises in making gluten-free baked goods. Our brief was to shift the “bland taste” perception of gluten-free food and help drive sales for Wholegreen - with a production budget of less than AUD $10K, and AUD $0 for media.

Publically bust the “Tastes like Cardboard” myth by creating and launching a cake that looks like cardboard but tastes delicious.

The crux of this brief was to change Australia’s perception of gluten-free food. In the absence of any media budget, we needed to attract the attention of opinion leaders in the food space and enlist them as a channel to reach our audience. So we identified a list of 100+ influential celebrity chefs and foodie influencers and sent them each a slice of Cardboard Cake fresh from the baker’s oven. The cake was delivered in a specially conceived cardboard box that promised to make “gluten-free food sceptics eat their words” and told the story of the cardboard cake. The call to action was simply to taste the cake and provide their feedback on social media.

We first had to work out how to make a cake that genuinely looks like cardboard but tastes great. We started in October 2023 with a CAD drawing that we translated into a mockup made from layers of corrugated cardboard. Next step was to engineer a bespoke baking tray that enabled us to make sheets of pastry that resembled our cardboard mockup. Then from December 2023 to late February 2024, we worked closely with Wholegreen Bakery’s head pastry chef through an iterative process to balance appealing taste profile and texture with cardboard appearance. We launched during Australia’s Coeliac Awareness Week (March 13-20) by sending each of our target list of 100+ celebrity chefs and foody influencers a slice of Cardboard Cake, fresh from the Wholegreen oven. The call to action was simply to taste the cake and provide their feedback on social media.

The Cardboard Cake made gluten-free food sceptics quite literally eat their words and left Australians in no doubt that you can be restricted to a gluten-free diet and still eat food that you enjoy. With a production budget of just AUD $8400 and a media budget of AUD $0, The Cardboard Cake drove close to AUD $2 Million of earned media. Social media sentiment was 100% positive. The day after launch, Wholegreen Bakery’s flagship store sold out - not just of cardboard cake, but of everything. And, at the time of writing (3 weeks after launch), sales are up 24% across all 3 stores. Consequently, the Cardboard Cake has so far delivered an ROI of 238%.