Half Sour food account review proposal

The deal

A brand agency in the final round of a soup company’s account review, read by the CMO, the CEO, the VP of sales and procurement.

What the CMO needed to see

Why shoppers who trust the can stopped picking it, which early idea survives a crowded shelf and how little of the old label she’d have to give up.

What we built

• A shelf where three label territories go on the can and the reader drags from one foot to twelve
• A can carried from the shelf through an endcap, a phone feed, a bus shelter and a recipe card
• A team panel printed like a food label, listed in order of hours
• A register receipt where every production line drops and names its trade

We opened with the insult

Seventy-year brands get proposals full of heritage. This concept tells Marrow Hill that from six feet it looks like the store brand, then sets its can in the middle of a shelf and asks the reader to tap the one they’d pick up. The brief behind that line came from 40 store walks. Marrow Hill’s share fell from 24.1 in 2019 to 14.8 this year while the store label climbed from 11.8 to 22.3, using the same blue, the same band and a price 80 cents lower. Those 9.3 lost points come to $316M a year at the register.

Three territories, one shelf

Agencies usually show territories on boards in a dark room. Here The Long Hill, The Count and Home Sick each go on the can, and the reader walks backward to the six feet where a shopper decides. The agency labels those distances as its own read and says a test with 600 shoppers on day 38 replaces them. The page also makes its call in words, taking The Long Hill and The Count forward and holding Home Sick as a winter line.

A chapter for each signer

• Renata, the CMO, turns off the blue, the script, the hill or Since 1956 and watches what happens with loyal buyers.
• Anders, the CEO, drags the share he expects back. The default of 16.4 by 2029 shows 7 eye-level facings and $11.3M a year in gross margin.
• Dee, the VP of sales, reads each retailer’s objection in the buyer’s own voice, ahead of the October 4 reset.
• Marcus in procurement sets the retainer at risk. The default 10 percent holds back $348,000 against a three-line scorecard.

Hours times rate, line by line

The retainer comes to $3,480,000 and production to $2,080,000, kept in separate buckets, and each line says what goes with it if it comes off. If the number has to fall, the page says to drop the shoot days first, and it says the agency would fight for the label work and the $120,000 shelf test.

Four signatures by December 11

The ask is four signatures for a January 4 start, with a 90-day out for either side at any time. The open questions stay in view, including whether R&D can take beef barley from 14 ingredients to 9.

The detail that does the work

Cut a line from the bill and those people come off the label, so procurement can see exactly who just left the account.