After years of internet debate, Hellmann’s has proved that mayonnaise can actually make music.
Hellmann’s wanted to resonate with GenZ and younger millennials. This audience were now reaching their mayonnaise-buying years and we needed to boost their consideration of brand.
Our challenge was to ensure that Hellmann’s only showed up where it was relevant to this audience, in line with its strategy of not forcing its way in.
On September 7th 2001 during an episode of the TV show SpongeBob SquarePants the question was asked “Is mayonnaise an instrument?”. This had sparked a decades-long conversation within the SpongeBob SquarePants fandom, a key cultural pitstop for our target audience.
We set out to prove the musical properties of mayo beyond any doubt, enlisting musical creators to make mayo music. To make it official, we approached Northumbria University and Orgonologist Dr Rachel Durkin, who published a research paper confirming that mayonnaise is an instrument.
We celebrated the result with fans, releasing a celebratory mayonnaise track, which went on to be remixed by DJ A Skillz and performed during a club set.
Finally, we set out to teach the world to play may via the The Mayonnaise Lectures.
The campaign hit 1.12 billion views in a single day. Paid media investment was $100,000 compared to earned media coverage of $10,4 million, thanks to 41 media placements.
The brand garnered 9.3k organic mentions, as well as generating more than 120,000 engagements across multiple platforms, including X, TikTok (a 1,000% increase in mentions year on year) and online news sources (a 144% increase in mentions).
