Background

Ageing the perfect cheese takes time and patience. Which is why Mainland Cheese’s iconic mantra is, “Good things take time” In celebration of that simple idea, the brand released a very, very time-consuming promotion.  

Idea

The Mainland 2,000-Piece Voucher was a coupon that came in the form of a huge and considerably tricky jigsaw puzzle. The campaign kicked off in social media with an announcement from Mainland:

Calling all puzzle enthusiasts – we’ve got something for you. Tell us who you’d recruit to help you finish this masterpiece and you’re in the draw to win a Mainland 2,000 piece voucher. It’s simple. Finish the puzzle, redeem the voucher, and an incredible prize will be yours.

Almost 2,000 cheese-lovers applied and the keenest puzzlers got mailed the jigsaw. Reflecting the mantra that ‘good things take time’, contestants were allowed a leisurely six weeks to complete the puzzle and send a photo to Mainland to prove it.

Watch the casemovie of this original Direct Mail here:

Results

The campaign received three times as much engagement as the average Mainland promotion. All over the country, people spent hundreds of hours piecing together the vouchers, with the record completion time being a staggering 45 hours. Even though that was the fastest response, it’s still a lot of time to spend thinking about cheese.

Comment

800 million people have adblockers on their phones and laptops. But it’s not so much that they hate advertising, they just hate bad advertising. Today, creative rule number one is to come up with ideas that people want to be part of.

Mainland set out to turn people into participants of the idea. Because, once they were actively involved, they would involve their immediate social groups and thus the idea would reach hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people. The real pull of this idea is less about winning a ton of cheese (okay, 20kg of cheese – still a LOT!) but in completing the mega-puzzle and becoming a minor celebrity in puzzling communities.  

Interested in piecing together your own In-Home Advertising campaign? Contact bpost media!