McVitie's Sweeet - Digestives from Grey London on Vimeo.

A DUSTY AND DISPARATE BRAND

While Britain might love a cup of tea and a biscuit, McVitie’s had fallen off the radar. A bit old-fashioned, a bit middle-aged, and a bit past-it. And their communications weren’t helping to change that, with poor cut-through in the face 

of a sea of slick US entrants with big media spends and a fragmented model that resulted in little halo benefit on the portfolio from ads for Jaffa Cakes to Hobnobs.

McVitie’s needed a long-term, integrated and fame-driving creative vehicle that built the masterbrand without diluting the salience of the sub-brands, grew relevance by building the brand’s digital footprint and created impact beyond paid-for media.

STOP TALKING ABOUT TASTE, START BRINGING TO LIFE A FEELING

Biscuits might be trivial, but they create powerful feelings of love, warmth, nurture & care. To capture that in our idea, we’d do the unthinkable and put adorable but furry animals right alongside sweet treats.

Sweeet™ evoked the emotionally powerful feeling of McVitie’s biscuits, creating a distinctive blue and gold visual world filled with adorable baby animals.

• TV saw our cute critters magically emerge from biscuit packets for a Sweeet™ surprise.
• Digital advertising amplified the idea and brand world, from ‘Paw Cursor’ to ‘Release the Snuggles’, even creating an iKitten app.
• PR fuelled media engagement with a Cuddle Café and Cuddle Vending Machine.
• In-store communications saw Sweeet™ dominate the biscuit aisle with McVitie’s biggest ever shopper campaign, and a promotion to win cuddly toy versions of our animals.

RESULTS

• Sweeet™ met with instant fame, generating 4.2m unpaid, organic views of the advertising online.
• Generated a 9% spike in UK category PR SOV, with
• The Sun calling it “Pawsome” and Time Magazine
• (Time Magazine!) “the cutest thing ever put on television”.
• In the 12 months following launch, McVitie’s grew +3.1ppts to its highest ever value share, growing value sales by £13.6m in a declining category.
• By 2016, the campaign had produced the UK’s official favourite ad of the year and the highest ROI ever for McVitie’s.