Who: DoorDash, with Hard Work Club for strategy and creative, with 1stAveMachine for production, School Editing and Alter Ego for post-production, SNDWRx for audio, and Wavemaker for media.
What: “Dancing With My Stress,” a new campaign focused on how the restaurant delivery app can help make life a little less stressful.
When & Where: The campaign is running now until July 3 in high-profile French and English programming, like sports, as well as online video.
Why: For the past two years, a lot of people viewed food delivery apps as an essential service, but the market has shifted as people get more comfortable returning to restaurants rather than ordering delivery. At the same time, rising prices and inflation have people being more careful about their spending.
In earlier campaigns during the pandemic, DoorDash put the emphasis on supporting the local community. But in this campaign, it presents stress relief for customers living a busy life as the reason to click: By ordering with DoorDash you don’t have to stress about making food, meaning you can use that time to tackle the other things that are stressing you out.
“When you place an order with DoorDash there is a whole neighbourhood ready to help make that to-do list a little lighter,” said Heather Cameron, director, brand marketing and creative, at DoorDash Canada, in a release. “That favourite neighbourhood spot is cooking up comfort with love, Dashers are ready to deliver it on their route, and our customers have a little extra time to focus on crushing something else off their list, even if that is just taking a moment.”
How: There are three different ads that use the same structure but feature three different household stress monsters: Laundry, cleaning up after the kids, and paperwork.
In each case, the ad opens with the main character placing an order with DoorDash. The catchy ear-worm “Dancing On My Own” by Robyn comes up, and the character starts to dance as each of the stress monsters comes to life, joining them on the living room dance floor.
By the end of the spot, as the DoorDash delivery arrives, each of the stressors has magically been defeated. “Tame that mess. Dash that deliciousness,” says the voiceover at the end of the laundry spot, the only one of the three that is running as a :30 (the other two are airing as :15s).
“For the campaign we wanted to portray the idea that there’s power in giving yourself permission. Permission is the freedom to pay for convenience that can turn your morning, afternoon, or evening around,” said Meghan Kraemer, partner and creative director at Hard Work Club, which won the account last fall. “It’s relief from the things that have taken hold of you, like that pile of laundry nagging you from the corner of the room.”
Making the monsters: Everything was done in camera by director Karim Zariffa of 1stAveMachine. They worked with a Cirque du Soleil costumer to create the stress monster costumes, using more than 1,000 toys and kids’ items to create the toy stress monster, for example.
