Sara Lee: High School Musical 3 Packaging

Client: Sara Lee (Hillshire Brands) | Agency: Launch Creative Marketing | Role: Creative Director | Award: Bronze Award – P-O-P Times' Design of the Times

Challenge

By continuing to leverage its relationship with Disney and the High School Musical franchise, Sara Lee needed to develop an in-store campaign to promote its Soft & Smooth bread while driving consumers to their website. They also needed to clearly encourage consumers to see High School Musical 3 in theaters. As a result, we were asked to help further this promotional partnership throughout the marketplace. We were given many marketing objectives in order to make this promotion a success. Of most importance was designing product packaging that draws moms and kids into the Soft & Smooth line and helps motivate purchases. Also, packaging needed to communicate the opportunity for "your kid to win a DVD viewing party with Corbin Bleu." Lastly, Sara Lee wanted to provide shoppers with joyful lunchtime answers and ideas. The target audience for Soft & Smooth bread is moms with kids ages 6-11, which mirrors the demographic of the High School Musical series.

Strategy / Making it Happen

Sara Lee felt that while "win" was incentive to lure moms and kids to a display, a tie-in with a popular movie was a great way to target the Soft & Smooth demographic. Packaging was designed to be fun and joyful (to parallel the "Joy of Eating" campaign) and really play into the concept that "Lunchtime is Showtime." It included many eye-catching Disney elements and all the necessary communication to build excitement around the "DVD viewing party" contest. The concept was developed as an extension of the "joy of lunchtime," which relates directly to the lunchtime experiences seen in High School Musical. Specifically, the lunch occasion is the one time that athletes, brainiacs, boarders and divas get together and share the joy of being school-aged kids. They sing, dance, share secrets, eat and have fun. The promotional packaging that was developed has a strong shelf impact. The design fits in well across the entire Soft & Smooth line. Most importantly, we designed the package to leverage and maintain Sara Lee's strong brand equity while also incorporating Disney promotions. 

Sara Lee felt that while "win" was incentive to lure moms and kids to a display, a tie-in with a popular movie was a great way to target the Soft & Smooth demographic. Packaging was designed to be fun and joyful (to parallel the "Joy of Eating" campaign) and really play into the concept that "Lunchtime is Showtime." It included many eye-catching Disney elements and all the necessary communication to build excitement around the "DVD viewing party" contest. The concept was developed as an extension of the "joy of lunchtime," which relates directly to the lunchtime experiences seen in High School Musical. Specifically, the lunch occasion is the one time that athletes, brainiacs, boarders and divas get together and share the joy of being school-aged kids. They sing, dance, share secrets, eat and have fun. The promotional packaging that was developed has a strong shelf impact. The design fits in well across the entire Soft & Smooth line. Most importantly, we designed the package to leverage and maintain Sara Lee's strong brand equity while also incorporating Disney promotions.

The products included a redeemable code printed inside specially-marked packages of Sara Lee Soft & Smooth products for moms and kids to discover. The code could be entered at thejoyofeating.com, where they learned if they were an instant winner of wonderful prizes ranging from printable movie posters to free Sara Lee products. This method helped draw consumers to the website and increased awareness. It was important to leverage as much of the packaging space as possible so that Sara Lee could clearly announce the High School Musical 3 partnership and the "Lunchtime is Showtime" sweepstakes. This was particularly important to execute on the gusset since it is the part of the package that the consumer sees first.

The products were merchandised on eye-catching in-store displays featuring life size standees of the High School Musical 3 cast.

Results

Consumer excitement generated by the on-shelf packaging exceeded the marketing goals from the client. While specific sales figures for this display are confidential, Sara Lee reported an increase of sales while this packaging was on display. Retailers across the country were excited to join the promotion by featuring the packaging on aisle shelving and lobby displays throughout stores, helping Sara Lee attain a very favorable response to the instant-win promotion.