2015 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

The hot sauce category is dominated by big, established brands like Tabasco who also have a habanero variant. We needed an impactful and different way to stand out and get the chefs and prominent food bloggers to try American Garden Habanero sauce.

The Brief

American Garden has a wide range of condiments that are already used by the hospitality industry (restaurants & catering specialists) in the UAE. They wanted to promote their new Habanero hot sauce to their existing customers to drive trial and orders.

How the final design was conceived

Habanero chili peppers are known to be one of the hottest, and only a tiny drop of Habanero sauce can spice up any dish. So, to promote American Garden's new Habanero sauce, we created a series of 10 miniature books, illustrating stories of minor events, blunders and mistakes that ended up having huge consequences on the world. Each book was created by a different artist. These books and a sample of the new sauce were sent to American Garden's existing customers in the hospitality industry (restaurants & catering specialists) in the UAE as well as Chefs and food bloggers.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

Staying true to our campaign line that 'a little thing can have a huge impact', not only did 60% of American Garden's trade customers place orders for the new hot sauce, they also referred the brand to other industry peers, and a simple but effective idea created a huge impact on sales.

American Garden is a popular food brand in the region, and although its list of best-selling products covers a range of condiments and canned food, its hot sauce still ranks relatively low on the list. Since a large portion of American Garden’s sales comes from bulk orders from restaurants, we needed to introduce our new Habanero Sauce in a way that would help us stand out against big name competitors.