Who: MadeGood with Broken Heart Love Affair for strategy and creative, Radke Film Group for production (directed by Michael Clowater), Saints for editing, Darling for VFX and colour, OSO for sound, Hype for Canadian PR and Epitaph for media.
What: “Un-Wreck the Future,” a new marketing platform that seeks to make an emotional connection with consumers by rallying kids to make real change in the world and supporting some of their specific ideas for action.
When & Where: The platform launched this week and will run long-term. The immediate media plan includes a series of video ads running in cinema, online and in fitness clubs, as well as social media outreach.
Why: This is the first mass-awareness marketing campaign for the Canadian healthy snack food brand, which has ambitious growth plans both here and in the U.S. Until now, most of its marketing had been focused on product benefits like gluten-free, organic, and free of common allergens, said MadeGood brand manager Milana Kleidman. “That’s what consumers know us for.”
But the company now also wants to be known for some of the important, progressive causes it has supported since launching.
“In this business, purpose has become a pretty disposable notion,” said Broken Heart Love Affair’s chief strategy officer, Jay Chaney. “And this is one of the first times I’ve ever worked with a company that actually was designed with purpose in mind.”
When BHLA started talking to the MadeGood team about a new campaign, they were insistent that selling product wasn’t the only marketing goal. “They actually wanted to get people to make the world better.”
How: ”Un-Wreck the Future” includes a number of different elements, but the campaign kicked off with an advertising campaign anchored by a two-plus minute film showing five young friends alarmed by the scary state of the world and determined to come up with an idea to solve hunger.
The spot ends with their realization that none of their ideas—like growing bigger food or charging billionaires $1 billion for a granola bar——will work.
In other shorter videos, the kids contemplate ways to save the environment, and send an “SOS” to aliens to help save planet earth. The films include almost no overt MadeGood presence (aside from a :30 that includes a couple of clear product shots), and all of the spots invite viewers to “join us” in the quest to “Un-Wreck the Future.” It’s a serious subject, but the tone is meant to be fun, playful and optimistic: There are real problems, but together kids can start to solve them.
How to join the “Un-Wrecking Crew”: The “join us” invitation refers to what MadeGood is calling its “un-wrecking crew.” Young people join by sharing the issues that are important to them, and causes they are involved with. Simply joining the crew in that way earns them a box of MadeGood products.
MadeGood will also provide up to $100,000 in in-kind donations to those causes identified by Un-Wrecking Crew recruits. MadeGood also has four “Un-Wreck the Future” ambassadors (two from Canada, two from the U.S.) who have also put out a call to join the crew via MadeGood’s owned and operated channels and PR outreach.
“Our goal is to support as many youth change-makers and local organizations as we can,” said Kleidman.
How Part II: This launch stage of the platform is intended to connect with millennial parents and Gen Z consumers through emotional advertising that gets them engaged with MadeGood and encourages them to think about how they could fix the future for themselves, said Chaney.
“We wanted to create a message that was going to be breakthrough,” said Kleidman. “This is an opportunity for us to elevate the brand, create more of an emotional connection with consumers through a message that is very relevant.”
The first wave of content to rally kids around big ideas for solving big problems will be complemented by more additional product focused advertising in the weeks ahead.
That “one-two punch” aligns with some of the best practice strategy of leading thinkers like Binet and Fields, said Chaney. “Highly emotional breakthrough work that gets people to pay attention and care, and then follow up with that activation, RTB-based work. That’s kind of the construct that we’re working with.” The latter work is still to come.
And we quote: “My sisters Sabha, Salma, and I founded MadeGood based on a passion for making healthy snacks and doing good in the world. We made an early commitment to food insecurity, which affects one in six children under the age of 18 both in Canada and the U.S., and have donated thousands in both cash and in-kind box donations to support grassroots and institutional causes. But when the pandemic hit, and cases of malnutrition skyrocketed, we decided it was time to think ‘out of the box’ and jump-start a movement led by the inspiring kids who are already making a difference in the world.”—MadeGood co-founder Nima Fotovat.
